


Playlist for the Apocalypse

by FrostedGemstones22



Series: Just Survive Somehow [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Apocalypse, F/M, Playlist, Post-Season/Series 02, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Southside Serpent Betty Cooper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-06-05 14:11:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 79,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15172418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostedGemstones22/pseuds/FrostedGemstones22
Summary: It’s been eight months since Betty and her travel companion have seen humans.It’s been nine months since the start of this and Betty has just begun to realize the whole world is fucked and it’s never going back to the way it was before.And isn’t that something?That’s at least what Sweet Pea would say.--Or, The Zombie Apocalypse hits and Sweet Pea and Betty find themselves as survival partners





	1. Hidden Track: Zombie

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_December 31, 2017_

New Year's Eve of 2017 will not go down in any history books. People will not look back on it as the day the world ended. Historians may never realize how, as the clock ticked it's way to the new year, the world would cease to exist before it ever began. 

It was not the date of the end of the world. It was the date that was the end of the beginning.

The only people left who would be able to tell you that died fairly early on. It's not as though people are in the habit of marking things down anyway; no, history is for later. During a war, it's about survival.

That's the thought of one of the lead scientists as he's frantically trying to escape the labs. He thinks that one day someone might know this date as important. Maybe it will be when the world rights itself again, or, maybe it will be after humanity has hit re-start, archeologists will find something or people can use their minds to just know things. Maybe they'll laugh at this generation of humans the way that we do about the fall of the dinosaurs. Or maybe, he muses last, no one will ever know at all.

It's all useless, he figures, thinking about this. It is; maybe he should have thought about his mother or his brother or his nephew in his last moments. Maybe he should have thought about how he was almost going to call in sick today and take one more day to celebrate the first couple days of 2018. Maybe he should have been thinking about God or religion or the afterlife.

None of it really matters. He's dead before he can use his keypad to unlock the doors.

After that, he's undead.

This is day six.

On day zero- December 31st, 2017- it begins with a mistake. It begins in a lab where it shouldn't have mattered that there was a mistake since they dealt mostly in chemicals to grow better corn. The world would be laughing if they knew about this if everyone one day turned out okay.

One drop of a 'harmless' chemical, mixed with the wrong something in the air and no one knew until it was much, much too late. The man who sneezed and dropped the vial was checked over, but no doctors found anything wrong, and he went home to celebrate New Years with his wife. Within a month, it will have spread through DC. Within two months, it will have started creeping through the USA. By day 131, they will consider the Wildfire Virus to have infected everyone on earth.

But that's getting ahead of everything, for, at this moment, there are celebrations around the entire world.

In a tiny town called Riverdale, on the North Side, Betty Cooper shoves a mask back into her desk drawer. She tells herself that the Black Hood is gone; she and Archie have seen to that. She tells herself this despite how much-in the back of her mind- she just knows it to be untrue. 

Her phone vibrates and it's Veronica, reminding her that her presence is forcefully requested for her New Year's Eve party. The message is followed by a bunch of smiley faces and purple hearts, with a promise that it will be an 'intimate event'. To Betty, that means just her and Veronica. To Veronica, it means at least ten people, but no more than twenty-five.

Archie will be there. They kissed, and that was that. They both were not dating others, so it's not as though someone did something wrong. But, now Archie is back together with Veronica and Betty is still broken up with Jughead.

She didn't think that anything would come of the kiss, but she'd be lying if she hadn't thought about that possibility, late into the night. The almost preposterous idea that she and Archie might start something together.

It's preposterous because she knows how much Veronica loves Archie, and that wouldn't be fair to her best friend. However, it's only been three and a half months since she tried to kiss Archie and reveal feelings to him, so some part of Betty still burns quietly for the friend she knows she cannot have.

And she loves Jughead. Despite their distance, she knows she cares for him.

She hates that each day it's getting a little easier to not be with him.

Betty truly does not want to go to Veronica's New Years Party, knowing full well there will be no one to kiss there and she'll be plastered against the wall of Veronica's apartment, sipping on champagne and acting like she's having a good time. However, Veronica will drag her there, so Betty texts her a reply that she promises to show up before midnight and that she has some 'errands' to do first.

Betty has no errands, but she can't be at her house and she can't be at Veronica's either. So, she gets in her car and drives.

In a tiny town called Riverdale, on the South Side, Sweet Pea raids FP's house for some whiskey. FP and Jughead are who knows where, but they're not here. Faintly, Sweet Pea recalls saying something that they'd be out together, doing 'family bonding' but Sweet Pea doesn't care. Is it wrong to be stealing alcohol from FP's trailer?

If you ask Sweet Pea, he won't call it 'stealing'. He'll call it 'borrowing', since he does have every intention of finding the same bottle elsewhere and giving it back. He's just too tired to give that much effort into finding it elsewhere, not when he knows that FP used to drink anything but water, so he must have something somewhere. Plus, FP loves the kid (but Sweet Pea knows he'll never say it out loud).

A car pulls up into the trailer park gravel. It's close enough to FP's house to catch Sweet Pea's attention, but far enough away that it could be here for another house. Sweet Pea pauses his iPod, pulling out one of his earphones to tilt his head to gauge the sounds. It's not a pair of motorcycles, which tells him the old leader and his son aren't back yet, but he still peeks out the blinds. He turns the sound back on, humming, but keeps his eyes peeled. He wouldn't put it past Penny to be snooping back around, even after they took her tattoo. He hopes it is her, in a sense, because he'd have an opportunity to beat her up.

He hasn't loved many of the ideas that Jughead's had, but he liked that one.

It's a nicer car, which Sweet Pea knows isn't anyone here's. He's sure they're lost and they've just pulled into the area to re-orient themselves on their maps and they'll be gone. The car idles, unmoving, for far longer than just a lost person.

In the dim light, past the reflection on the snow, Sweet Pea can see a pale face with a ponytail, slicked back. It's blonde.

He needs only one guess to figure out who it is; Betty Cooper, Jughead's ex-girl.

She's here for Jughead, he's sure. Or, she thinks she might be here because she hasn't made any effort to get out of her car. In fact, she looks surprised she's here at all, and yet she doesn't move.

He doesn't have an occasion to talk to Betty Cooper, and he doesn't have great opinions of her. Scratch that; he's not sure what his opinions of her are.

He heard the name much before he met the girl. He'd associated her with Alice Cooper, ex-serpent (and everyone knows stories of Alice Cooper, back before she got a stick up her ass), first. Then, it's all he heard Jughead talk about for much too long. She always seemed perfectly nice, if not strange for finding Jughead attractive, and that's not what made him dislike her. It's the fact that Jughead never shut the hell up about her and because Sweet Pea thrives on conflict, he had already decided to dislike anything Jughead likes. He's given up burgers at Pop's once he found out how much Jughead liked them, and that's saying how far he's willing to go just to annoy that emo crown kid. So, by extension, he disliked Betty Cooper.

However, Betty Cooper then went and did a serpent dance at the Wyrm, and Sweet Pea wondered if he was perhaps a little too hasty with his assertion to dislike everything that Jughead liked.

And then, Jughead (the ultimate idiot) broke up with her promptly after. Had she been Sweet Pea's girl, he considered for just a second, he would have taken her out of the Wyrm and probably fucked her senseless against a building to show his gratitude. He'd never thought Jughead was smart, so, maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised.

But he didn't think Jughead hated Betty. He defiantly wished Jughead did, because then Sweet Pea would have been obligated by his own rules to like Betty, and he could feel less strange about the way he'd been feeling about her of late. He wasn't freaking in love with her (Sweet Pea didn't do 'love') but she got his blood going in ways that he hadn't thought proper and Northsider Betty Cooper ever would.

This just left Sweet Pea confused about how he should feel for Betty. Respect? Attraction? Mild indifference? All three? None?

At the moment, he's a little annoyed she's showed up here. Jughead is mopey but adamant they 'have' to break up. Betty just seems a little desperate to be here.

He wonders if he should go out and say something. Tell Betty Jughead isn't here. Maybe strike up a conversation, try his luck? Before he can do this, Betty shifts the gear and backs away, the headlights bouncing off the shivering trees and vanishing down the road.

Sweet Pea turns his music up, full blast, and returns his looting. He finds a bottle- mostly empty- and nicks it. He goes to Fang's trailer, knocking three times on the door and holds the bottle of whiskey by the neck, holding it up in triumph. The pair of them climbs onto the roof of Fang's trailer, brushing snow off to sit down.

They pass the bottle between them while Sweet Pea plays his New Year's playlist, a compilation of the best songs to come out in 2017. Fangs sings off key to  _Despacito_ , hiccuping already. Fangs has never known how to hold his liquor. Sweet Pea is hardly affected by the amount he's consumed, leaving him just buzzed enough to let his mind detach from his body; from the numbness of his fingers, from the whispering of the wind, from the creaking of the tin underneath him.

Sweet Pea remembers that they say who you're with on New Years is a good indicator about the influence of the rest of the year. Or maybe, it's about who you're thinking about. At any case, as the clock strikes 12, Sweet Pea is thinking of Betty Cooper, sitting in the driveway with her lips pursed and frowning at the house, clearly in a mental argument with herself. He thinks about how Jughead should have never broken up with her and how Betty Cooper is not the girl he thought she was.

At midnight, Betty is thinking of Sweet Pea as well, but she does not know it. She did not mean to go to Jughead's trailer, but it was such a familiar path that she didn't even she was going there until she had parked.

She had seen a light on in the house, but the motorcycles were gone. She'd seen someone lift between the blinds and peek out, but make no motion to come out to her. She wonders if it was FP or Jughead. She is unsure it was either and wracks her brain trying to figure out who it was if it was not them. Choices like Toni or Tall Boy weave in her mind, but she cannot think of a reason either would be present in the house when FP or Jughead isn't.

If you had given Betty 100 choices, she would have never guessed Sweet Pea. She does not, at this point, even truly know who he is, except that the name rings a bell and she thinks he might be a Serpent, or maybe he's a Ghoulie. And, if someone put him in a lineup, Betty could not have pointed him out. She's heard Jughead bitch about him on an occasion or two, which leads her to think it might be a Ghoulie, but since the break-up, Betty has been trying hard to not think about anything having to do with the Southside. Today was the first time she'd even been back in the area and it had hurt a lot. Enough to maker her slam the gas and squeal out of there before she did something really stupid, like go and sit on Jughead's bed and wait for him to return. And, the more she thought about it, the less she even wanted to do that. She thinks, actually, that maybe Jughead should be apologizing to her! Betty tries to enjoy the party, but her mind wanders back to the blinds, and she thinks it can't have been Jughead, for even he would not have been so cruel to ignore her...she hopes.

At midnight, the vial holding the virus has been dropped and as soon as it shattered, there was nothing anyone could have done. Even if Betty and Sweet Pea had known they were thinking about each other- and played into the idea of superstitions (Betty firmly did not, Sweet Pea did, but only when it benefited him) which would mean that they were influential in each other's upcoming year- neither could guess what was to come.

And, all things considering, it's probably better that way.


	2. Track One: Holding Out for a Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! So I plan on updating once a week...but I'm not sure what day of the week that'll be yet XD So, hopefully next week, things get a little more settled? It will probably end up being once a week between Fri-Sun.

_February 2019_

It's been eight months since Betty and her travel companion have seen an humans.

No, that's not quite right. It's been eight months since Betty and her travel companion have seen any living humans; as compared to the multitude of corpses scattered on the ground like leaves, as compared to something even worse- the walking undead. It's been eight whole months since she's talked to someone else, sans her companion, and nearly nine months since 'this' (whatever 'this' is) started.

It's been nine months and Betty has just begun to realize the whole world is fucked and it's never going back to the way it was before.

And isn't that something?

That's at least what Sweet Pea would say.

_May 11th, 2018_

The end of world did not end with a bang. I did not end with a whimper. The end of the world ended as normally as ends of the words can be.

One day it was, one day it wasn't.

Of course, Betty is sure that it's much more complicated than that. She knows if she still had internet to look over things, she'd be able to chart the ways it was all leading up to it and no one knew. She's sure that someone had to guess it somewhere, even if it was those previously-thought-to-be-crazy survivalists, who she thinks are somewhere out there, but in all likelihood doing much better than she is. She bets those people in their tin bunkers are laughing it up right now, alive and well, while the rest of the world burns above them.

But to Betty and to everyone in Riverdale, it simply ceased to be their world anymore in the span of 24 hours.

In the chaos of their town, what with her father being revealed as the Black Hood and Archie's arrest, they were all to preoccupied with their own minimal problems to look at what was happening outside of their city limits. But, even if they had, would any of them have ever been prepared? At least right now, Betty can pretend like if she'd known she'd been better off, instead of the reality that nothing could have ever made this situation okay. No amount of color-coded notes or carefully stocked supplies would have made the end of the world easier for Betty Cooper.

It's in moments like this, when she reflects, that she thinks of Jughead. She thinks that she cannot even accurately begin to describe the change of those hours in any real way, she's only able to look at it from a journalist's logical and detached mindset. She can report hour to hour the happenings, but she would have fumbled if someone asked her to vividly tell them about her fear, her hunger, or the rush of adrenaline as she fought for her life. She thinks that if the world ever does end up righting itself and if Jughead is somewhere still alive out there, the novel he writes about this happening will be a bestseller.

The truth of the matter, whenever Betty thinks hard back to it, is that they were all worrying about Archie and nothing seemed more pressing than the fact that her best friend was being accused of a murder Betty is pretty damn sure he didn't do. One Betty hopes he didn't; they'd all seen him run after the buglar, but when he'd come back, he didn't have the eyes of a killer. Maybe he's a better actor than she cares to admit. Maybe being trained under Hiram all that time, even as a way to get the better of him, darkened his soul in ways that was inevitiable. Maybe he did kill that boy, Betty wonders, and she won't say it outloud but she wonders how they'll go on after that? She remembers sleeping over at Veronica's house, consoling her.

"It's my father, I just know it. I just know it and I feel so helpless," Veronica paced around her room, throwing anything and everything at the wall. Her clothes, balls of socks, jewelry, and finally a bottle of perfume that shattered, leaving a little puddle on the ground and the aromatic scent that Veronica once wore everyday hanging in the air.

Veronica always has a plan; this is something Betty can depend on. She's gotten herself out of bigger things, so to hear Veronica has no ideas scares Betty a bit. She still tries to be helpful.

"Veronica, Vee…" Betty's voice is soft. Veronica is trying to clear away the broken glass, and she cuts herself, "Hey, leave it for now. Mayor McCoy is going to do all she can for him, right? And his mom is coming down tomorrow, so there's that. He can't go through this. There's nothing, okay?" Betty wants so much to believe it. Veronica is a mess, her makeup running and her shoulders shaking. Betty will never tell Veronica her fears because that's not what Veronica needs to hear right now. She needs to hear the certainty in Betty's voice when Betty tells her that Archie is not a killer and her father won't get away with it. Veronica literally melts into Betty's arms, looking smaller and more childlike than Betty has ever seen her. She pats Veronica's head softly, encouraging her into the white and fluffy bed, tucking her in. She curls up next to her friend, clicking the light off and finding Veronica's hands, holding them. She's shaking still.

"Let's go to bed; in the morning, it will all be better." Betty whispers, easing her friend into what she hopes is a sleep filled with happy thoughts, "I swear."

God. If Veronica ever found her again, Betty expects she'll have to pay dearly for that lie. She didn't know, which is a fair point.

No one knew.

_May 12th, 2018_

Betty wonders if she'd started this new world out with Jughead and FP if it would be different. She had plans to spend the night with Jughead before the pep rally, but cancelled them in favor of her friend and Jughead agreed, as he was preparing to spend a night in the sheriff's office to be around Archie. She's glad they've mended whatever problems they had with each other, since their friendship is something Betty never wants to see either of them loose. And, if Betty could, she may have been camping out with Archie too. But, Veronica needs her.

It's strange to to think, because she muses that if she didn't't have Veronica as a friend, she would be with Archie. However, if Veronica never came, Archie wouldn't be in prison to begin with. Maybe he'd be planning gigs for a garageband for the summer months, in between working at his dad's crew. Maybe Betty would be half-way on her way to another internship. Maybe Jughead would be sending out his manuscript to publishing houses. And, in a very impossible way, Betty wonders if maybe the apocalypse wouldn't have come at all.

She tries not to think about that too much, but in those first few months, it's fairly inevitable.

She didn't know what was creeping on their town. What she did know is that when she woke up the next morning, Veronica wasn't there. There was a note left on the vanity with Veronica's impeccable handwriting announcing she would be at the prison and that Betty should come whenever she wakes. It seems peppier than the night before, but from the way the pen presses hard, Betty knows Veronica is still reeling. Betty snatches the note off the vanity. Later, she'll be glad to have a memento of one of her best friends.

Betty checks her phone to text Jughead, wondering if he's still at the prison with Archie like he has been all night. She should have thought it strange she had no service, no internet. However, with the stress and exhaustion of everything else going on, brushing aside technology acting up is simple to do.

Hermione and Hiram aren't home either. No one is home in the large apartment, not even downstairs at the door, where there's always someone guarding them.

After everything, this does send shivers up her spine.

Betty makes an executive decision; she ransaks the apartment until she finds one of the many guns she knows Hiram has hidden away. She can apologize later, hopefully, when she's still alive. She just has to make it to that point, she tells herself.

She recalls the attempt on Veronica's life with Small Fry. How would someone not know, if they'd never seen Veronica, that she was not Hiram's daughter, if someone else was lurking around, waiting for revenge. The blonde hair may be a giveaway, but if she's learned anything, these thugs aren't ones to check facts first.

The internet router says it's a problem with the service. The Lodge's still have a phone hooked into the wall, probably for nefarious purposes, but when Betty picks it up, there's no dial tone. Betty waffles in the living room of Veronica's apartment for a couple hours, fighting with herself. She's been in more dangerous situations before, even if she does not exactly what the danger is. However, those situations have always escalated quickly, and she usually has someone else- be it Archie, Jughead, or even her mother. She has scouted the whole apartment and not found a single soul, so staying here would be the safest.

Betty likes to think that it was mainly her worry for her loved ones that drew her out, but in all honesty, it was her curiosity. Betty can't help it; throwing herself into situations like this.

Outside looks like the world just stopped existing. Cars are abandoned halfway in the street, windows are broken, and things- couches, money, personal items- are sprawled across the road. Most terrifyingly, there's just silence.

There's a pair of people in the street. Since Betty's phone is acting like she's in the middle of Antarctica and is glitching out, refusing to connect to service or wifi, Betty sighs, approaching them.

Ignoring the drug use, the Ghoulies, her own father, and Hiram Lodge, Riverdale is relatively safe (or, was) and Betty knows pretty much everyone in town, which is why she feels okay taking a couple steps forward. She thinks that one of the people might be the college drop-out who bags her food at the grochery store; his name is Chad or Chet or something. However, he seems unresponsive in the usual way. His body is bent forward in a position that looks highly painful, however he makes no moves to amend his stance. Her confusion about everything causes her to keep a hand on the gun.

"Uh, hey, hi...Do you happen to know what's going…"

She pauses, lips parted, frowning. She's just come around one of the abandoned cars and for the first time, she has a full view of the situation before her.

One of the people is laying on the ground, and they're undeniably dead. Their head looks like it was run over by a truck, and that should have been the worse thing Betty's ever seen. It isn't, but it's a close second. What is hands down the most vile thing Betty's ever seen is that the second person- Brett, yes, that's his name- seems to be eating the first, fingers digging into their innards like it's spaghetti. She's known Brett to be high on occasion, but weed doesn't make someone do that.

Brett- the cannibal, Betty at first thinks, wondering if this is meth gone really wrong- turns around.

"You're not a person," The words slip out before she can fully think it through. Brett is a person. This is not Brett, she realizes with a horrified intake. It's hardly human. A person would not have a bite ripped from their shoulder and look okay. A person wouldn't have their jaw hanging and still be eating flesh. A person wouldn't be whatever this thing is.

Betty think it used to be Brett, which is equally terrifying, but she cannot know what it is now.

Her instincts give her two choices; run or fight. Both alert her to the fact that this thing is no friend and she should be very, very afraid.

She raises the gun, stumbling back a step or two.

The thing stumbles toward her, making a low keening sound in the back of a throat she's not sure it still has, dragging toward her at no quick speed. It's not the speed that makes Betty's blood freeze, it's the whole thing and the feeling that she could be next on this thing's meal list.

She shoots it in the chest, but it does not stop. She shoots it again, and though it slices through the thing like butter, the creature continues to advance. Betty stumbles back, falling hard on the concrete, over a car.

The creature is at her feet and Betty raises the gun once more, aiming for it's head.

She doesn't register the hit, not at first, not until she's bathed in sticky, nearly black blood and the body falls beside her, unmoving.

Betty is shaking hard and it's really all she can do to drag herself into one of the empty back seats of the abandoned cards, slamming the doors around her.

Inside the vehicle, her fingers are numb and she drops the gun to the carpeted floor, wiping away her cheek and seeing it come back covered in something that she would compare to molasses, if molasses had the smell of decay accomping it.

It's all she can do at this point to scream into her hand, holding back the tears.

She wants to find Jughead. She wants her mother. She wants Archie and Veronica. She wants to find Brett alive somewhere else, because that would mean that she didn't just kill him. She wants her sister. She might even take her father now, because having him hold her in this moment would feel more normal than what's going on outside.

Betty is a logical person and literally nothing about this is making a lick of sense.

Betty also has rarely felt fear, not when she's gone through so much. She recognizes that fear would have been appropriate, after the fact, but when chasing the fake Black Hood or answering her phone, she's too aware of every other sense. Today, however, right now...this fear overwhelms her in a way that she's never felt before. It suffocates her, creeping into her darkness and strangling it.

Betty cannot imagine herself stepping a moment further. She hates herself for feeling like such a coward, but she can still see the the supine outline of Brett that she just killed, or thing- she is, once again, not sure it's a person- and that really puts something into perspective for her.

Her arm is hurting like nothing else. She peels back her sweater to see that it's bright red and matted. Somehow, when she fell, she must have sliced her arm open and just not even noticed. She wraps it as well as she can, wishing she had some advil or something, because now that she has only this to focus on, it really stings. She contemplates her options; she can venture out to find some pain meds, she can ventur even furthur to find people she cares about, she might run into more of those. She checks the gun and sees she used the last bullet into the brain of that thing. This pretty much cements her choice.

Betty stays in the car.

_May 12th, 2018 (Later)_

Betty hadn't meant to fall asleep. It was wildly irresponsible, given the climate. However, the mixture of the adrenaline with the dizziness she was feeling from the loss of blood leave her far more tired than she thought, and sleep overcomes her. Plus, last night, she was worried equally about Veronica and Archie and sleep eluded her most of the night.

She awakes to hand prints being shoved against the windows of the car and those same rasping moans.

Betty instinctively rolls to the ground, out of sight as much as she can be. She tries not to gag, but the smell of death is really overwhelming everything else, so much that she throws up in her mouth just a little.

She wonders how Jughead felt, going in to face Penny that night not too long ago. Knowing he might die. His was a choice, though. A stupid choice, but his choice all the same. He had a chance to call Betty. Betty would very much like to live in this moment, but feels like it might be out of her hands. She only comes up with a ice scraper as a weapon and she will go down fighting if she has to, but she counts six separate pounding bodies, so she knows she's outnumbered.

"I'm sorry," She whispers, unsure who she's apologzing to. Her mother, for never coming home? To Jug, for being scared? To Veronica, for not waking up with her this morning? To everyone?

She prepares herself to fend them off until her dying breath, until she begins to hear bodies thumping. She also hears...whistling? She is almost sure she's going absolutely batty because it almost sounds like it's to the tune of Another One Bites the Dust. She presses a hand to her forehead, first to see if she's got a fever. She wonders if maybe she's actually dead. She hears the sickening sound of bones cracking and figures- dead or alive- she's going to be ready. Her fingers curl around the blue plastic ice scraper, preparing herself to open the door.

Nothing prepares her for the door opening suddenly, at least, not the door opening by someone other than herself. She nearly hits her head on the concrete as she slides out of the car, head facing toward the sky. The sun is setting and reflects off the car, shining right in her eyes. She raises an arm to shield her eyes without thinking about the danger that might be around, and blood dribbles onto her cheek.

"Damn it," She mutters, noticing she's dripping blood from her arm again. She might need stitches.

"Are you human?"

The question is careful, but stupid Betty decides. If she wasn't, she'd be attacking him right now. She probably wouldn't be hiding out in someone's rusted SAAB, that's for sure. She has a biting reply on her lips, but tells herself that this person just saved her life, so she should be gracious. And, at that, she realizes she's still not sure who it is. The sun is still in her eyes, so Betty squirms all the way onto the ground, and then pulls herself to sit.

Betty looks up to see her savior; Sweet Pea. She only knows him by association- that he's part of Jughead's serpents, but he's been an aggravator at many points in Jugheads attempts to take the reins. He's covered in blood like she is, but she thinks his is from the six people he just felled. He has a baseball bat clenched in his fist, heaving like he just ran a marathon, and looks strong as hell.

"Sweet Pea, hi," Her voice is raspy, "Yeah, I'm human. If you mean, not one of them…" She blinds, unable to think harder than that. Her witty responses go right out the door when she sees the carnage behind Sweet Pea and sees a pool of black blood that is inching closer to her, "Thank you."

They've only ever had a few talks, and most of them spats at that, so to thank Sweet Pea is unexpected. However, he's never been outright mean to Betty and she knows Jughead doesn't hate him, so there's a count there. He did just save her life, albeit he didn't know it was her in the car, but still. She knows Serpents would die for each other. It seems wildly out of character that he would stop to save someone that likely wasn't a serpent. Or, Sweet Pea is more of an enigma than Betty knows and he might actually be a half-decent guy.

"Fucking apocalypse," Sweet Pea gives an aggravated sigh, more so to the world than to Betty, and she thinks he might have muttered something else (but all she catches are the words 'unprepared' and 'playlist') but she finds the strength to shakily stand. She grabs the empty gun from the car, but when she turns she stumbles.

"Woah," Sweet Pea grabs her arm; her bad arm, and she hisses. He pulls it back to see it's covered in blood, and he stares at his palm with a darkened look.

"That looks bad."

"I just need some gauze," Betty insists, "Tis but a scratch." She says before she can stop herself. It's a joke she would make with Jughead. However, this probably isn't a time to be making light of the situation, and two, does Sweet Pea even know what she's talking about? From his almost smirk, she gleans he's at least seen Monty Python, "Really. I'm okay." She insist after a second. She turns and what she sees on the ground breaks her heart. It's a student, her age.

She didn't know his name, nor much about him, other than that he came from Southside High but was not a part of the Serpents. And now he's laying on the concrete, his cheeks and eye sockets sunken in and his skull bashed in. She looks up at Sweet Pea, and Sweet Pea bites the inside of his cheek. "I had to."

"I know," Betty's own foot nudges what's left of Brett, trying to show that she understands that he had to kill this thing, even if it was once his schoolmate. She turns back around, but her gaze falls on the kid again. He looks a ghastly gray and one of his arms is torn up, but not elegantly like some animal, but like something with duller teeth decided to take a bite.

"He just wouldn't stop trying to get into the car. Joshua, I think was his name. A freshman." Sweet Pea is following her gaze, "Did you come from the Lodge's?" He asks, pointing to the white fortress just ahead. Betty nods. She's glad he switched topics. Talking about Joshua, who was fourteen or fifteen at most, is not on her list of things she wants to do.

"It's empty, though."

"Shame," Sweet Pea sighs, "I figured the apocalypse would be the best time to off old Hiram, you know. Revenge for everything."

"Yeah, well," Betty isn't sure she wants Hiram dead. As much as Veronica said she wishes that her father would die last night, and Betty agreed, Betty is unsure that's how either of them truly feel. Betty despises her father but she doesn't want him dead, however, Sweet Pea's life has been ruined a whole lot more than hers has by Hiram.

"We're going there."

"Uhm, no." Betty tightens her ponytail, "I need to find Jughead and my mom."

"You've lost a shit ton of blood. You're not going to get three steps." Sweet Pea slings the bat across his shoulders, "But go ahead, go on," He says, raising an eyebrow. He's challenging her and he looks so smug that it infuriates Betty.

Betty defiantly takes a step forward, which doesn't seem bad. The second is fine too. So is the third. It's the fourth that'd disastrous, that leaves her crumpling in a ball, her legs buckling.

Sweet Pea picks her up off the ground, slinging her arm over his.

"It was four steps," She argues quietly and Sweet Pea snorts, but he almost smiles. She will not admit defeat, but he knows that she realizes her weakness in this moment too.

Inside, they go back to the Lodge's main living room. Sweet Pea makes a mess of their bathrooms, searching for medical supplies while Betty gingerly works her sweater off. She still has a shirt underneath, so she's not stripping naked for a boy she hardly knows. She bites her lip hard when she unwraps the fabric she'd patted over her wound, tears pricking her eyes as it lifts up from where it has stuck itself to her cut. It's like pulling off a band-aid, but with none of the healing properties a band-aid has.

"Rich people have great meds," Sweet Pea rattles a bottle of vicodin, "Bottoms up."

"I don't know," Betty gnaws her lip, "Maybe we shouldn't be doing that. We should have our wits and all."

"Well, it's here if you need it." He sets it in front of her, "Now...your arm."

Neither of them know what they're doing, but they manage to slather on a whole lot of antiseptic and bandage it pretty tightly. It's not as bad as it looks after all the blood is cleaned away, and luckily will not need stitches, Betty decides. It's going to leave a nasty scar, but Betty can live with that. She's surprised how methodical, how careful Sweet Pea is as he uses a rag to clear away the excess blood.

"Why did you help me?" She asks as Sweet Pea is tying off the ends of the gauze.

"Too tight?" He checks. Betty shakes her head. He's not medically trained, but the Serpents get bashed up often, so it's not wholly unheard of that he'd know a basic thing or two, "Serpents are all about survival instincts...except Jughead, who seems to run right toward certain death. All that aside, you've got some balls, Betty Cooper. Don't think I ever told you that."

"Erm, thanks?" Betty has hung around boys enough to know this is a compliment. She never thought Sweet Pea thought so highly of her. It seemed that whenever they were in a room together, they ended up fighting over something.

"Plus, seeing you bleed over the Lodge's thousand dollar furniture is almost satisfying my revenge," He says, nodding to a throw pillow that's been irreparably ruined and stained with Betty's blood.

"Right," Betty agrees dryly, "So do you know what's going on out there?"

Sweet Pea takes a set next to her, "Not a damn thing. I woke up and the world was burning. At the riverside where we're camping, I mean that fucking literally. Someone thought that maybe burning these demons would work…" He frowned hard, "Far as I've seen, only way to stop them is to get a headshot in. I tailed it to the baseball diamond and managed to pick this bad boy up. It's done me well so far." Sweet Pea taps the bloodied baseball bat against Betty's leg. His fingers clench and unclench around the handle, as though reliving his morning.

Betty has a thousand questions. Two spring up as the most important. One is emotionally driven, one is logically driven. She fights between two, finally asking the second.

"What are these things?"

"Ask what you really want to know," Sweet Pea doesn't command it, but offers it. Betty is almost warmed by the gentleness in his tone, and this along with her question that she does truly want to ask nearly makes her cry.

"Is Jughead okay?" Her voice shakes much more than she wants. After being told she has lady balls, she would hate to seem weepy, but Sweet Pea doesn't seem to hold it against her.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," Sweet Pea whispers, "He-, along with Fangs and Toni and Cheryl- were gone when I woke up. I figured he came to you, that Toni and Cheryl were together and Fangs?" Sweet Pea looks so angry, "I don't know where he is."

"I'm sure he's okay."

"He's a cripple in a world of psychotic undead things eating people's flesh, Cooper. Don't coddle me." Sweet Pea snaps, "And if all this was for nothing, if our death was having to move to that freaking river bed, if we all could have been safe in the trailers," Betty notices his lack of a swear word and figures he's really upset, "Well, I figured Hiram could pay for it in his blood, then."

"Oh."

"And I dunno, to your other question. I don't know what these are, but it's nothing good."

"Yeah," Betty nods. She gets up, "Hungry?" On one hand, after seeing all this, it should be impossible to eat. However, she also realizes it's been nearly all day since eating, and that's not healthy.

"I guess if someone put food in front of me…" Sweet Pea looks at his hands, more red than flesh toned, and is thinking the same lines that Betty is. He makes a face, wiping it across the back of the Lodge's sofa, settling his muddy boots over their coffee table. He does not look calmed, but Betty wouldn't call her current self 'calm' either. She recognizes that one of them needs to take some sort of motherly initiative. She doubts it's going to be Sweet Pea.

"Okay. I'll see what we have."

It's getting dark now and Betty is smart enough to know that Jughead is smart too. He is, arguably, smarter when it comes to street logic. His father is smart too in that same way. Wherever he is, he's found somewhere safe, and going out now would just endanger her and she wouldn't get a block out, not when the walk between the kitchen and the living room (albeit that it may be a larger distance than most kitchens and living rooms are) makes her still feel nauseous.

She will search in the morning.

_May 13th, 2018_

"Most people left town." Sweet Pea informs her at first daylight, "I saw people just pouring out of the city limits."

The morning came earlier than Betty thought. She had been up all night, running through the names of people and wondering how they were faring. Cheryl and Toni were okay; Cheryl was terrifying in the best of ways, plus, she had to have loads of hidden places all over Riverdale. Jughead and his father would be fine. Archie would be okay because Veronica would be okay. Kevin and his father had a whole slew of guns at the police station. She was worried about her mom, her sister, and Fred Andrews specifically. Sweet Pea woke looking miraculously well-rested and wasted no time going through the Lodge's fridge. He informed her of the town's status as he was ransaking their fruit drawer. The day before, Betty had only gone as far as finding leftovers that looked like some fancy mac 'n cheese and reheated it, too tired and too ill to cook anything else.

"Well," Betty locked her jaw, "Whatever. I'm going to stay here. I won't leave until I find my friends. Until I find Jughead." She crossed her arms, staring Sweet Pea down, raising an eyebrow, "I get if if you-,"

"Hey, now. I was just letting you know what I saw." Sweet Pea slammed the doors shut to the fridge, "You think I would just up and leave? Without finding the Serpents?"

Betty hadn't thought of this, not in that moment.

"Then," She bit the inside of her cheek, "I guess we'll go out when you're done eating, huh?" She muttered, feeling her cheeks redden. She hadn't expected that response from him. She knew Serpents were a little self-serving- self-preservation- so she was honestly expecting Sweet Pea to be booking it out of town like the rest. Sweet Pea was shoving a banana in his cheeks, shoving two apples into his jacket pockets.

"I'm good now. Here." he slid the knife block her way, "Pick your poison, Betty Cooper."

"And you?" Betty raised an eye. His trusty bat was strapped across his back, but knives did seem more effective and it didn't make sense for him to ignore a whole collection of them, even if the weathered wood had served him well yesterday.

"Found this laying around," Sweet Pea twirled a gun around far too casually, "I'm sure we could find more. However, you seem so anxious to get back to your bae that I figured you'd want to get on the road."

Betty rolled her eyes, refusing an answer other than walking toward the door.

"If you had a girlfriend I'm sure you'd want to get back to her too," Betty said pointedly and Sweet Pea just shrugged.

"You might want to change." Sweet Pea said, looking Betty up and down, "I mean, it's not the blood, it's the fact it's a skirt. I'll be waiting downstairs." Betty paused. She'd almost forgotten that she had been wearing a mini skirt the day of Archie's arrest. She hadn't changed since then.

"You're not going to leave me?" Betty asked suspiciously.

"Cooper," Sweet Pea sighed in frustration, "Do you really think so low of me? Plus, Jughead would skin me alive if he found out I left you here. Go. Change." It was an order. Usually, she'd fight back, since no one could order her around, but since the reasoning was sound, she agreed.

Betty sprinted to Veronica's room and found a pair of jeans- jeans that probably cost more than five hundred bucks, but jeans- with a jacket and a t-shirt. She found Sweet Pea pacing in the living room, not in the lobby like she'd thought. She knew there was a problem from the look on his face.

Silently, he lead her to a window that overlooked the front street. Pressing themselves against the front door were at least thirty of those half-human things, all ravenous to get inside. A flash of fear struck Betty.

"We just clear them, yeah?" She whispered, "We have a gun."

Sweet Pea shook his head, aiming at one out the window. He was a good shoot, and did manage to fell a single one. Betty saw the problem immediately. The remaining creatures stumbled over to that one and from up the street, Betty saw some that had just been milling around turn and start toward the Lodge's.

"They're attracted to noise. It's why I was on foot instead of my motorcycle." Sweet Pea grumbled.

"So we just have to wait until they leave?" Betty whispered, shaking her head frantically, "Sweet Pea, I have to leave, now."

"You'll be dead if you do." Sweet Pea left the window, "But be my guest."

Betty stood at the window for ten minutes more, watching them swarm like bees before she angrily shut it down and stomped back into the living room.

"The walkers will move on eventually," Sweet Pea dragged a hand over his face, "Logically."

"Walkers?"

"I don't like calling them 'it' forever. They walk."

That was acceptable enough for Betty.

"We'll just wait it out." Betty agreed, and checked her phone again. Still no signal.

This couldn't last more than a couple hours, she figured.

She should have figured out by this point that she was going to be wrong.

It took around 2 days for the group to pass on. She wasn't sure why they were so preoccupied with the Lodges of all places, but it was infuriating.

Betty found things to do with her time.

First things first; she made a list about what she did know about her situation. It could really be boiled down into two points.

It was the apocalypse and there were things out there that used to be humans that were now dead-looking and liked eating other humans.

She made very elaborate notes about her senses during this time, but that's what it truly came down to. And she could work with this. She could prepare for this by the way that she figured she'd become prepared for literally anything. She wasn't going to be caught off guard again.

Between her and Sweet Pea, they scoured the entire Lodge property and came up with quite the arsenal of weapons, mostly guns. It wasn't great, since guns brought more walkers, but she wasn't upset with it either. In a pinch or if they weren't in highly busy areas, guns could be useful. She did wish, however, that Hiram had been obsessed with collecting swords or antique torture devices or something. That would have been more useful.

She was sure by the amount of guns she'd found that Hiram was indeed gang based. She hated to admit it, but in the face of disaster like this, Hiram was going to be able to deal with it. She kept waiting for the Lodgers to return, but they never did. By the middle of that first day, Betty decided that the Lodges were probably far gone, perhaps even out of the country. That thought infuriated Betty, except when she realized that Hermione would never leave without her daughter and Veronica would not leave without Archie, which meant that if she believed that the Lodges had fled, two of her friends were okay.

Betty also began taking out food, medical supplies, backpacks...anything else that could help them. If Riverdale was as overrun as the Lodge's street, Betty had a sick feeling that they couldn't stay here either, once they found people, of course.

Sweet Pea, on the other hand, was interesting to watch.

Betty had never known Sweet Pea all too well, but this gave her a chance to observe the person Jughead would consider his second in command, if he had to pick someone. Sweet Pea had a natural persona that Betty could understand as almost being sly or charismatic, but it just bothered her most of the time. He made a big show of seeming okay, seeming almost gleeful to be parading around Hiram's house. He sang under his breath a lot, a variety of songs, many that Betty didn't even know. At one point he'd started up the good 'ole 'this is a song that gets on everybody's nerves', that is until Betty threatened to kill him in his sleep after the twelfth or so round of it. After that, Sweet Pea began singing 'It's Not Unusual', which wasn't much better, but Betty accepted it. She was sure he did that just to piss her off, though, and the songs he hummed, sang, or whistled to himself were much better choices.

If she wasn't watching him, she would have thought he might have not been as affected as she was. He seemed all too happy to go through every square inch of the Lodge's house, tearing through Hiram's clothes in an elaborate fashion show, reading top secret documents he certainly should have have been perusing, and spent a good amount of the time unlocking the three safes in the Lodge's house. He managed to get all three open by the time they left. He used everything in the house with zero guilt. Betty used things too, but with some yucky feelings. She knew Vee would likely want her to use things, if she were here, she told herself. She needed to eat. She needed to shower. She needed to sleep.

If Betty only saw these activities, she may be miffed about his nonchalance about the whole situation. It was only when he thought Betty wasn't looking that Sweet Pea let himself be nervous; times when Betty had said she would be showering, after dark, or when Sweet Pea was by himself.

He'd be doing something, and then it would be like anxiety would overwhelm him. He'd pace back and forth for minutes on end, sometimes even a whole hour, biting at his nails and looking outside the window. Betty caught him doing this two or three times, enough to tell her that this was seriously rattling him too. A part of her was equally relieved and disappointed; relieved because it made her feel like less of a wimp, but disappointed because she had sort of hoped he had a plan or truly was as brave as he seemed.

They didn't talk much. They did sit down to watch a couple movies on low volume, but it was less a partnership as so much as one turning something on and the other meandering over to the wide couches to join them.

Everyone in the apocalypse, and I get stuck with him.

That wasn't fair, Betty realized if she thought about it. Conversation was a small price in comparison to everything else. She could be with someone who didn't respect her, who didn't know her at all, or who was cruel. She could be with someone useless. She could be with someone much younger or older.

Truth being told, she was fairly well matched with Sweet Pea, at least in this moment. Of course, they'd hopefully find their own groups and maybe they'd just split apart after that. She'd be fine if that happened. She was just grateful she wasn't alone right now.

Some part of her was sure he was happy to have another live human with him too.

_May 15th, 2018 (Approx 11 pm)_

"The herd has moved on." Sweet Pea said in the dead of night, waking Betty with a start.

"Where?"

Sweet Pea shrugged, shoving his hands into his jean pockets. Betty supposed as long as it wasn't around the Lodge's house anymore, she truly didn't care.

"Are you ready to go?" She asked, jumping out of Veronica's bed and throwing her hair in a ponytail. She'd taken to sleeping in some form of read-to-go clothes so that she could leave like this, at a moment's notice.

"You have no idea."

"What? Has burglarizing the Lodge's house lost its appeal when there's no one to fight about it?" Betty asked dryly. She knew half of Sweet Pea's attitude was with the hope Hiram would reappear and he could get his 'revenge' in. He must have come to the same conclusion that she had.

"No, I'm ready to find my friends. Plus, you would not believe the info that Hiram has just lying around in safes. I mean, I got into them, so how secure can they really be? I was going to tell you about the folder he has on Area 51, but with that tone, I don't think I am anymore." Sweet Pea said.

"Har-har," Betty rolled her eyes. She realized after a second she couldn't be sure that Sweet Pea was joking; that is, that Hiram did have some info about UFOs or aliens locked away.

Betty threw him a backpack filled with non-perishables, a couple guns, and lots of knives- along with other necessities. They'd agreed that right now, a car would be loud and draw attention to themselves, especially when they'd be searching for people, so they'd be stopping and starting a lot. They'd loaded most of the supplies into one of the Lodge's cars to return to once groups were found and leaving would be more of an option. Betty had shoved as much as she could into the back of one of the vans the Lodge's used.

She didn't think about the getaway car right now. In this moment, all she could think was that she might get to see Jughead soon. That was one of the few things that kept her sane these past two days. That and having someone to moan about the apocalypse with, even if Sweet Pea wasn't her first, second, or even tenth pick of a person.

The herd was absent at the front doors, but Betty's feet still froze on the tile.

"You okay, Cooper?" Sweet Pea's voice was low, quiet, and surprisingly concerned.

"I...yeah," Betty tried to play it off, laughing, but her voice came out cracked. They'd seen through the window that the street was empty, but that didn't make it better. She was safe here. Out there was decidedly unsafe. She'd been outside and she'd gotten a gash on her arm and nearly died. One might say going out was just asking to tempt fate. Then again, staying in the ghost of the Lodge's apartment wasn't an option either.

"I have your back." Sweet Pea assured, nudging her shoulder, "C'mon, let's find our friends."

Betty nodded and the pair slipped into the moonlight.

There were some key spots they agreed that people might be hiding out. Neither took out a flashlight, and neither spoke; both concerned about keeping their wits and being on the lookout for walkers. Only the moon lit their way.

Together they started walking through a Riverdale that Betty felt like she knew, but altogether, was now hauntingly different.

_May 16th, 2018 (Early Morning)_

Most places were a bust. From places on the North Side- the school, the station, town hall, hospital- to the Southside- the trailer park, the Wyrm, Southside high...no life anywhere. Sweet Pea had kept a more hopeful demeanor as compared to Betty, but after seeing the dead bodies stacked up in the Wyrm, that just broke Sweet Pea. Betty hadn't known all the members of the Serpents, since there were many, but most of the bodies that lay there had those signature leather jackets on.

Sweet Pea just went a little catatonic after that. Betty had been lucky enough to see only a few recognizable people she knew, the rest of the town that she could name either too disfigured, hopefully safe, or off roaming as a walker now. Sweet Pea, in this moment? Well, it was undeniable that at least twelve of his family were gone forever, if not more.

"At least the Ghoulies will be killed too, look at this," Betty offered after a long time, nuding the foot of their former leader, Malachi.

"Good riddance," Sweet Pea whispered, the first words he'd spoken since he'd walked into this graveyard.

As fars as Betty could tell, none of them were Juggie, FP, Toni, Cheryl, or Fangs...the rest, she didn't really care about, and it wasn't to be rude. She just didn't know any of them that well. She had a horrible thought that if she hadn't met up with Sweet Pea, and Fangs or another Serpent were to have rescued her, to walk into this, she may not have cared if Sweet Pea was a body on the ground.

The thought made her feel sick. They'd been together for around three days or so now, which wasn't a long time. But, it had been a very long three days and Betty knew Sweet Pea on a different level than before.

Sweet Pea was behind the bar, pouring straight up vodka.

"Woah, hold on." Betty jumped over bodies.

"It's customary to take a shot for every fallen member," He said, raising the glass, "Calm down, I'm not stupid enough to take twelve shots now. I do have a brain somewhere," His voice was toneless, "But you gotta let me have this."

Betty gave a ternse nod of understanding. She hopped up onto the bar, reaching over him to grab a second shot glass. He blinked in surprise as she tilted it toward him, asking him to pour her a shot too. Usually, she wouldn't have done that. But these people deserved a send-off, even if it was two high-schoolers taking a double shot each. It might be the only recognition these serpents would ever get.

"Thank you," Sweet Pea's voice was grainy, "To those that have fallen. Rest quietly, my friends." He clinked the glass to Bettys.

"Rest quietly," She whispered as a soft echo, rubbing her stomach as she downed it. After that, she watched Sweet Pea go around and find any IDs or wallets he could of his deceased family. His mood did not improve as, on the bar table before him, spread out was pictures of happy families, driver's licenses, and cell phones.

"It's only the first day." She whispered, "We've only been searching a day. We can just keep looking tomorrow. People have to be around. Our people."

"No serpent left for dead," Sweet Pea agreed, as though a reminder to himself. Though, as he looked out across the bar, Betty could help but see the doubt crawling into his stomach. If she were in his shoes, she'd be thinking the same thing too. She didn't say a word as he took a picture of each, stuffing it into his pockets. When he left the Wyrm, Sweet Pea did not look back.

They took up residence in a minivan for the night, taking turns to keep watch, readying themselves for another day of searching.

And another, and another, and another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the day of the start of this is Day 131 of the Wildfire virus, or if you watch the walking dead, is the day that Rick wakes up from his coma.
> 
> I forgot to mention in the preface, but I do something special where if you review ten times, you get a drabble written for you! If you follow me on my writing tumblr, youngbloodlex22, you can see some of the ones I've done for other reviewers, or if you go onto my story 'Karios' on here.It's a little incentive to leave a note, but also a thank you for those that do :)
> 
> Also worth mentioning, I am actually a huge Bughead fan! So, I'm going to try to handle her end of her relationship with Jughead as carefully as I can, so there will be no Jughead bashing or quick switches to Sweet Pea. This is a slow, slow burn baby!
> 
> The track for this 'Holding Out for a Hero', and specifically I like the cover by Frou Frou! I did consider putting 'Another One Bites the Dust', since Sweet Pea was singing that, but I thought that the lyrics of HOFAO more fit Sweet Pea's heroic entrance, plus Another Bites the Dust is a good zombie playlist song, but theoretically these tracks are from a playlist Sweet Pea made and he couldn't have known it would be zombies that would be the end of the world.
> 
> Please review! It really means the world to me!


	3. Track Two: Soldier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this chapter is 'Soldier' by Fleurie! It really gets at the desperation, the hopelessness of the searching that Sweet Pea/Betty do in this chapter. As always, if you have a song to suggest, feel free :) And, please oh please review! It would mean a lot to me to hear your thoughts.

May 28th, 2018

Two weeks of useless searching in Riverdale and not a living soul left to find.

They did find one person, and Betty recognized him as someone who had worked at the hospital. He'd been kind when Fred was shot. His name was Kelly, she thinks. He was shaking and had a high fever by the time they came across him, hidden out in an elevator at the now near-empty hospital parking garage.

What had transpired after would follow Betty forever.

He had explained to them through chattering teeth that he'd been with other doctors and the walkers had just overwhelmed the staff. He'd been trying to get the elderly and sick into cars to take to New York City, but had been bit in the process. There was a nasty indent on his arm, necrosed and puss-filled, but undeniably a human's jaw. He hadn't' made it onto the van, because he'd started feeling sick. He didn't want to infect others so had convinced his friends to leave him behind and he'd been holed up here since. They'd only evacuated the hospital a couple days ago, he described, using guards and the numerous hallways to hide from the walkers until they could no longer do so.

They were far from the hospital, in terms of being able to drag him there (Sweet Pea searched for a gurney for about an hour) and Betty nor Sweet Pea had any medical training, so all they could do was watch him die, and try to make sure he didn't feel alone.

They were conferring if they should leave the body or attempt to bury it as to respect him when he came back to life.

The hand of the doctor-turned-walker grabbed Betty's arm, but Sweet Pea was faster, firing a shot through the skull. It all happened so fast that Betty didn't even realize what had happened until much later, when the world wasn't swimming and her ears weren't ringing.

The doctor's head hit the ground with a sickening sound, like a egg breaking on a countertop. Blackish blood, thick, seeped from under his head dripping through the gaps where the elevator aligned with the parking structure. Betty couldn't stop watching it.

"We have to leave. Others will have heard."

Betty was stunned, but nodded.

They managed to hightail it to somewhere safe, somewhere with a heavy locked door- the police station. Most of the guns had been looted but Sheriff Keller nor his son were anywhere to be found. Her father's cell was also empty; she wasn't sure how to feel about that.

"So, here's what we know from that," She said once she'd been sure to thoroughly wash her arms, "A bite gives you a fever and eventually kills you. You come back to life as a walker. Only way to kill the walker is a shot in the head." If she had to remember those events for the rest of her life, she better have learned something from it, she told herself.

"Sounds easy enough to remember," Sweet Pea leaned against the wall, his voice heavy with sarcasm. It was easy to remember. To avoid it? Easier said than done.

They could hear the sound of shuffling and moaning on the outside, so they both hushed up for an hour or so, but both kept a knife close to their fluttering hearts.

"I think if we find someone, it's going to be one or the other," Sweet Pea was the first to start talking again, balancing the knife on his fingers, dangerously.

"What do you mean?" Across the way, the sun slanted on Sweet Pea's face. He frowned.

"My people, or yours."

Betty looked at her hands. It was a possibility.

"If we find Archie and Veronica or Kevin, I wouldn't...ask you to go." At that point, they'd been together for two weeks. It wasn't a lot of time, but when the world had ended, two weeks past certain death felt like a very elongated period. She wasn't saying he was he best friend, but she knew he was a good person and she wasn't going to make him leave, not after all of this.

"I could stand Archie. Veronica, maybe. Kevin's okay." Sweet Pea declared.

Betty almost said 'good' but the words died on her lips a little. She wanted to also say that beggars shouldn't be picky about the survival of the human race. She also felt a thrill run up her spine that he wanted to stay with her, but tried to quell that.

"If we find the serpents, and Jughead's leading them, of course you'll stay. And if not…"

"You'll vouch for me?" Betty quirked an eyebrow.

"Actually, I was going to say you're basically a Serpent anyhow, so it wouldn't matter. It's just not official with a bow yet."

"What?" Betty actually stood, crossing the space between them, kneeling in front of him to make sure she heard correctly, "I don't-,"

"Jughead didn't ask you?" Sweet Pea almost looked embarrassed, "Shitty time to tell you that your boyfriend who we haven't found wanted you to take the mantle of his Serpent Queen and all…"

Betty thought back to two nights before the world ended. It seemed so far away. Plus, Betty hadn't been sure that Jughead had been serious about that. She thought he'd been asking in a soft way, not asking her to join up with the serpents...especially with how he'd been pushing her away from them all year.

"Oh," She'd almost forgotten it in the chaos of it all, "No, he asked. I guess I just didn't think you knew."

"Of course I knew," Sweet Pea nearly looked offended, "He can't just ask anyone he wants to join. There's channels to it, people have to agree. I have to agree."

"And you did?"

"Why wouldn't I? You have more claim than Cheryl. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's terrifying, but she also was shitty to us in the past. She just hardly eked in, but no one will ever tell her that. You? Frankly, it wasn't much of a discussion." At Betty's shocked face, he continued, "Firstly, you already did the snake dance, and that's pretty much there already. And that show was, well," He smirked at her in a way that might have nearly been flirty, "It's just the first time Betty Cooper cam on my radar. And after that, you've been our ally. Plus, your momma was a serpent and family blood means a shit ton. So yes, I had no problems agreeing, swaying the crowd."

"Ah. Thanks." Betty murmured.

"But, knowing my shitty luck, we'll find your people," Sweet Pea groaned.

The next day, Sweet Pea went and came back with a serpent jacket that fit Betty. Betty didn't know where it came from or who he lifted it from, but she accepted it anyway. She doubted they had an untouched closet somewhere of Serpent Jackets, waiting to be doled out. He left and was back before she woke, for she would never let him go alone if she knew.

When she saw it, her eyes brightened and she realized she was much more excited than was likely appropriate. Between all the drama of the year, she'd never gotten a chance to even try on Jughead's.

"Human teeth can't bite as easily through leather." She said when Sweet Pea looked so smug handing it to her. She held her breath a little as she slid it over her arms, letting the weight of it drop against her shoulder blades. The leather was worn and Betty found a crumpled receipt in the pocket from the 7-11. Whoever this had belonged to had bought a Slurpee and a bag of Recess three days before the end of the world. Unwilling to let go of the owner of this jacket, Betty re-folded it carefully and put it back where she'd found it.

"So?" She asked, spinning around a little, more in jest than anything else. She turned to see Sweet Pea watching her intently. He didn't drop his gaze for a second, not even when she met his eyes.

"If only Jughead Jones was here." He whistled low, "Leather's a good look on you."

"Eat your heart out," Betty replied dryly, rolling her eyes, "Let's get going, huh? Find your people."

As it would turn out, they would find neither group, at least, not here in Riverdale and not anytime soon.

June 9th, 2018

They did find a group from Riverdale, but not in Riverdale.

It was three weeks and three days of searching and finding zilch that broke Betty's resolve. Twenty-four days of nothing was a lot to handle, a lot to swallow back. It was hard to admit that her worst fears might actually be confirmed.

Everyone she loved might be dead.

The moment that broke her totally was when she went back to her house. They'd passed it the first day, but Betty had quickly deduced that there was no one there, but couldn't bring herself to walk inside.

She convinced Sweet Pea to look back there once more, mostly because she felt like she needed a glimmer of hope, of something there. Something to make her stay here, to keep looking. Sweet Pea was doubtful, but didn't try to persuade her against it. Maybe he needed a win too.

Inside was practically ransacked. It looked like her mom had left in a hurry. She was relieved to see the knives missing, meaning her mom had probably taken them with her. Her mother's old serpent jacket was also missing.

There were walker guts all over too, which did not bode well.

Betty idly wondered if she would have gone to FP?

There was a singular thing left for Betty, a note on the ground, ripped in half.

Betty, love, come find me. I'm going to-

The rest was ripped away, shredded, missing. It wasn't anywhere to be found.

Betty stared at that note for a long time, shaking her head. Her fingers gripped it so hard it tore tiny holes where her fingers were. She stood, unmoving and unable to breathe.

This was so much worse.

She would never guess where her mother was going. She might never find her. It seemed like this was the snapping point, the point in which Betty could take no more disappointment from this toxic and walker-run town.

"Hey, that sucks," Sweet Pea said once she wordlessly handed him the note. It was as close to sympathy as he knew how to sound. While his words offered little comfort, his tone was someone who understood and might have hugged her, if he were a different person.

She walked upstairs and began to methodically go through her room, still mostly untouched, for things she'd want to take with her.

Sweet Pea followed.

"It's, uh, pink," He said, blinking at her space. If Betty were feeling her normal self, she may feel strange about someone other she didn't know too well viewing something so personal. She just felt numb now. This room wasn't her anymore. It was the room of a normal sixteen-year-old girl in a non-apocalyptic world.

Sweet Pea had brought his personal things with him when he'd gone to off Hiram, and told Betty there wasn't a house to go back to anyway.

Betty took a handful of things; pictures of her family and friends, small things Jughead had given her, a friendship bracelet from Veronica, her iPod, and other trinkets that could fit into a backpack. She stopped in the room that had been Polly's. Though they'd cleared it out for Chic, her things were still packed in boxes in the closet. Betty took things that reminded her of her sister from when they were children, like Polly's stuffed lamb or a shirt that Polly wore so much it had gotten holes in it.

She went to her mother's room, but found it trashed, and was unable to salvage much.

Sweet Pea was in her living room, sitting on the muddy couch and staring out the window.

"We need to leave." She said tiredly.

"Yeah, this house is giving me shivers, no offence," Sweet Pea agreed, and she could tell that he was curious to explore her room but was keeping his hands to himself.

"No, this town, I mean."

She expected Sweet Pea to be indignat, to insist he'd never leave without his fellow serpents, but instead he just rubbed the back of his neck and looked down.

"I uh, yeah. I'd been trying to find a way to ask if maybe we should. Glad you did it first." He sounded a little relieved.

"Our friends aren't here," Betty shook her head, standing, "I don't know where, but we'll go crazy if we stay here."

"Or die. There are walkers fucking everywhere." Sweet Pea agreed. They'd had a couple close calls.

They walked back to the Lodge's in silence. Betty was trying not to cry in front of him, swallowing back bile and bitter agony about having to leave with no leads, with no proof anyone still around, and with the resolution that her childhood home is not the same place it was. It stopped being that way the day Jason Blossom was killed, and she'd been trying to pretend otherwise for a year.

She wonders if she should just mourn now; mourn every person and believe them to be dead. It might spare her feelings later down the road.

They are silent as they get into the van they decided to make their getaway in. It's only once they've reached open roads that Sweet Pea speaks.

"Where to?"

Betty can tell he's trying to regain that teasing tone he usually had, but it's absolutely impossible in this moment.

"The Lodge's have a cabin. It's not too far away. Maybe they…" She frowned, biting her lip, "Jughead knows where it is. He might have gone there."

"Okay, sure." Sweet Pea twiddles his thumbs. She wonders if he would have agreed to anywhere that wasn't Riverdale.

Betty feels better every mile she puts between herself and RIverdale. She had thought she would feel guilty for giving up, but instead, she feels relieved. She feels a little bit free.

Around the hour mark, Betty breaks the prolonged quiet time they've both been having.

"What's your name?"

"Uhh," The dark-haired serpent looks at her, utterly confused, "Sweet Pea?" He reminds.

"No, no. Your real name." Betty waves a hand.

"What if this is it?" He chuckles.

"I seriously doubt that's what your god given name is." Betty mutters.

"What about Jughead?"

"I know that's not his real name," She sees Sweet Pea's mild look of surprise, "What, surprised that I know?"

"I kinda thought-," Sweet Pea turns red, "I dunno, never thought to ask!" He defends himself at Betty's expression once she realizes he's not shocked she knows his real name, he's shocked he has a nickname at all, "His dad was on and off drugs and drinking when he was born, so maybe, I just assumed,"

"It's Forsythe Pendleton Jones the Third." Betty informs him.

"Hardy-har-har," Sweet Pea clinks his fingers against the glass.

"Oh, I'm dead serious. It's Scottish. Why do you think his father is called 'FP'?"

A spark of connection skirts over Sweet Pea's face. He rubs his forehead, groaning.

"That name is terrible. Yeah, I'd go by a stupid name like Jughead too. It nearly sounds normal in comparison."

"Oh, stupid, unlike Sweet Pea?" Betty replied dryly, "Speaking of, never answered."

Sweet Pea shrugs, setting his feet on the dashboard, "They said it the first day we were transferred to Riverdale High overhead. Can't help it if you weren't listening." He really seems like he's not going to tell her.

"I wasn't listening," Betty muttered. She'd had other things to be paying attention to, such a trying not to obsess over Jughead, since it was very shortly after their breakup. And, even if she were, they announced at least thirty names. How was she supposed to have known which was his, on the off-chance she had been paying attention?

"Well, I can't help you then," Sweet Pea leaned his head back on the seat, closing his eyes. He looked very comfortable.

"But-," Betty began to protest.

"Look, Cooper. My real name is a super-duper personal thing. Once you've earned knowing it, I'll tell you. Gottit?" He said without opening his eyes.

"Is it embarrassing?" Betty guessed, "Worse than Forsythe?"

"No, it's normal."

"Then...I mean, we've been traveling together for three weeks! Don't you trust me?"

"Trust isn't it, Betty," Sweet Pea opened an eye, watching her without moving, "It's only given to those that deserve to know. Trust is only a teeny-tiny part. Don't have you secrets?"

Betty was about to press the issue, since she absolutely felt like she should know, but then thought of her 'Dark Betty'. The darkness her father said she had. She quieted. Who was she to judge his secrets, as frivolous as it may seem to her.

Sweet Pea watched her face change and only rolled back on his side to sleep. He stayed asleep until they arrived.

"Welcome to Lodge Lodge," Betty kicked him with her shoe. He blinked awake.

"Did you just say 'Lodge Lodge'? God I hate the Lodges sometimes," He muttered, "It's a pun. It's funny. Dammit." He seemed to think that the fact that the Lodges could be humorous was the worst insult they'd laid upon him yet so far.

They hardly got a step and a half outside the truck when an arrow whizzed past Betty's cheek. Sweet Pea moved instictly in front of her, until Betty got a good look at the arrow.

"Next one doesn't-,"

"Cheryl! It's me, Betty. Sweet Pea too!" Betty spoke as loud as she could without fear of walkers. They hadn't seen many on their way up, but that didn't mean that they weren't out there.

"Cousin Betty?" A dark figure moved in front of them, into the moonlight, "Oh my maple trees."

Betty didn't expect a full on hug from Cheryl, but then again, the end of the world was changing a lot of people. She nodded respectfully to Sweet Pea, a sign of respect, and in that moment Betty had a feeling that Jughead wasn't here. Not when it seemed she was acquiescing to the second-in-command of the Serpents.

"Come in, weary travelers! We mustn't stay outside long." She stalked over to the tree and yanked the arrow out.

Betty and Sweet Pea shrugged, following them in.

"She's a strange one, huh?" Sweet Pea asked under his breath, nuding Betty.

"Well, she's your strange one now," She pointed out. Cheryl had been wearing her red Serpents jacket.

"Our." Sweet Pea corrected, plucking at Betty's own jacket. Betty gnawed her lip uneasily. The jacket on her felt more of a piece of clothing than an actual introduction to the group. Besides, as far as they could see, there wasn't much of a Southside Serpents gang anymore. Could one be a gang of a mere two- no, three- people?

There were three others inside.

Toni nearly bowled Sweet Pea over when she saw him, sucking in a gasping breath, "I thought you were dead!" She practically jumped him, her arms tightening around his neck and her legs around his waist. He staggered back a couple feet before finding his footing. Sweet Pea hugged her back, a motion that Betty hadn't expected from him. However, she knew that the pair were close.

The other two people were not who she was expecting to see- Ethel Muggs and Chuck Clayton. Her fists clenched when she saw the former, still recalling the horrible person he'd been last semester. She did recall that at the musical he'd seemed better, but that didn't make up for years he'd been awful. And, she wasn't sure that Chuck wanted to forgive her either. She worried, for an instant, he'd mention something about 'Dark Betty' to Sweet Pea.

She did recall that Veronica had lifted his pariahship, but...

"Look, I know," Chuck must have been able to read her face.

"It's the end of the world, Betty. We can't be choosy about survivors." Ethel broke in, but her tone held something else. She was looking at Sweet Pea with plain distrust.

"I trust him more than you," Betty replied frostily, addressing Chuck, "However, Ethel is right." She tried to let go her feelings toward Chuck. As far as she was concerned, any marks against someone should be wiped away in the face of the apocalypse.

"No Jughead?" Sweet Pea asked quietly to Toni. Cheryl had joined her girlfriend's side, taking her hand. Toni gave a slow shake of her head, "Fangs?" He rattled off a couple other names of Serpents that Betty knew in passing, all with the same response. There was a certain point in which it seemed Toni was waiting for him to say more names, but Sweet Pea just stayed silent. There was a moment of realization on Toni's part, the realization that the names he had not said were ones he knew were dead...it was probably the group from the Wyrm. Betty and Sweet Pea had spent the day after using a sharpie on a large rock and marking their names, leaving it in the parking lot. Toni gasped into her hand, choking back tears.

"Betty took the goodbye shots with me," Sweet Pea said. Gazes turned to Betty. She bit her lip, unsure of why Sweet Pea had included her right now.

"Did you maybe…" Betty took this opportunity to pipe up, "Juggie?"

"When I woke up and the tents were on fire, last I saw, he and FP were trying to evacuate some of the younger kids. I tried to run to the hospital to get help, but when I returned, everyone was gone." Toni explained.

A stone lodged itself in Betty's stomach. Hearing it twice was harder than she thought. She tried not to make a noise, but a pained mewling escaped her throat.

"We know where he might have gone, though." Toni added at Betty's sorrowful sigh, "Jughead." She paused, looking back to Sweet Pea. She looked over Sweet Pea's shoulder at Betty, apologetically, "Last we knew, he's alive. FP too. His dad wanted them to go down to Arizona to find his sister and mom. They had a huge fight. Jughead wanted to find you."

Somehow this made Betty feel worse. She felt physically ill.

"I don't know after what I told you." Toni finished, shoulders slumping, "Same with the rest."

"Oh," Sweet Pea sighed, "We looked. For three weeks."

"Longer than we did." Toni's face reddened, "I know I should have stayed longer, but-,"

"Hey, hey. It's a fucking warzone there. I don't blame anyone for leaving and staying alive," Sweet Pea grabbed her shoulders. He seemed to be able to calm her, he did have a leader quality that Betty hadn't seen him use yet. They hadn't needed a leader between the two of them. They'd been equally taking the reins on the situation, she realized. She didn't want to think about how that dynamic would change now that they found more people.

"Only consolation is mommy dear was one of the first to go," Cheryl broke in, shrugging, "I see you sporting your family's heritage, dear Betty."

It was only now that Toni spied Betty's serpent jacket. She didn't' know why she felt so self-conscious.

"I, erm," She fumbled, zipping the fob up and down.

"I gave it to her. Good protection against the walkers." Sweet Pea made it seem like it was completely casual and not a huge deal. Toni and Cheryl nodded, both believing him.

"Cute," Toni commented, "Someone should get a good use of it." Betty was glad that Toni didn't seem against her wearing this.

"Looks good," Ethel added. Betty had nearly forgotten she was still there. She was easily forgettable.

"Is this all that's here?" Betty asked, glancing at the group that now totaled six.

"The giger that strangely-is-not-my-cousin and his lady love are not here, no." Cheryl said. At Betty's totally broken face, she detached herself from Toni, "But…"

It was that but that made Betty's heart pound; she wasn't sure if she should be bracing for bad news or good.

Cheryl just took her hand and steered her to a wooden post near the entrance. Carved in it, carved with the precision that told Betty they hadn't been rushing, was a remembrance.

Archie and Veronica were here; May 30th, 2018.

"That was only a few days ago...we just missed them…" Betty whispered. But they had been safe, and for some reason, they'd left. She traced her fingers over it until a splinter caught on the pad of her thumb.

"We think it wasn't anything to do with those... things," Ethel spoke up, "But likely Veronica's parents. This place was pristine when we found it. We saw the damage those creatures do if they get in." Her face darkened. Sweet Pea sucked in his cheeks, scowling.

"Missed 'em again, Sweet Pea," Betty managed to reply with a cracked smile. Toni raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"I have hope that they're still alive. They're the annoying sort that would, but, for the sake of the human race, I hope they have prevailed." Cheryl said, patting Betty's shoulder.

"Why?" Betty pulled a face. She was under the impression that Cheryl tolerated them both, but only truly liked Toni and Betty, on a good day.

"Those two could repopulate the whole earth with their rabbit-like mating habits. Usually a deplorable trait, but surprisingly useful in a time like this." Cheryl said without missing a beat. Sweet Pea did break out laughing at that. He wheezed, holding his stomach. Betty sent him a look.

"Oh, come on, that's hilarious. It's true too!" Sweet Pea defended himself.

"Feel free to take whichever rooms are open," Cheryl brushed past Betty, "I, for one, am going to bed. Toni's on watch. We'll work you into the rotation tomorrow. Toodles and absent dreams."

"Absent dreams?" Sweet Pea frowned, "Don't you mean 'sweet dreams'."

"Hardly. Any dreams around this time are filled with terror and generally unsavory thoughts. I'd rather just rest and wake up, wouldn't you?"

Toni was grinning, and shrugged at Sweet Pea, "There's one more bedroom open. Are either of you hungry?"

"When isn't he?" Betty murmured, looking at Sweet Pea, "I'll help."

To be honest, she wanted to talk to Toni.

In the Lodge's kitchen, Toni methodically pulled out a few cans.

"So…" Betty hopped on a barstool.

"You and Sweets? That's a pair I thought I'd never see. As travelers." She added after a moment.

"Survival." Betty mumbled into her hand, resting her jaw in her palm as she leant on her elbow, "Hey, do you know his real name?" Yes, it was still bothering her.

"Sure do, but you're not gonna get it out of me." Toni said, looking up and seeing Betty's face, "Oh, he'd kill me if I told you. You have to earn it."

"That's what he said," Betty sighed dramatically.

"He doesn't have much control. His name is something he can," Toni opened the jars, heated them, and handed them to Betty, "If he hears you asking about it, you'll never learn." She advised.

Betty scowled, but shut up about it.

June 10th, 2018 (early morning)

Betty couldn't sleep. Sweet Pea had insisted that she take the remaining bedroom, where he'd take the couch in the living room. She hadn't put up much of a fight, mostly because Betty had wanted the bed.

But now, laying here, she felt on edge. After weeks of searching, she was used to two things this bedroom didn't have; enclosed spaces or Sweet Pea within an arm's length. She didn't need him in the bed, but she'd gotten used to knowing he was close, and vice versa. It was just natural, and the best way to protect themselves.

"You're safe," Betty whispered into the darkness, "You can relax. Get a full eight hours, or more." Somehow, she wasn't convincing herself.

She was semi-glad that the last bedroom wasn't one that her and her friends had touched when they'd first come up here. If she had been in Archie and Veronica's room, she might have been up laughing all night, wondeirng how many times they managed to have sex during that time. If she'd been in the room her and Jughead had been in...that room would only bring her pain and memories. This was the last bedroom...the Lodge's Master Suite. Betty was mildly surprised that Toni and Cheryl hadn't taken it. It was nice and comfortable, but at this point, Betty would have taken a blow-up bed.

Finally, she was just totally unable to drift off. She wondered maybe if she took a lap around the house, just to be sure, she'd be able to convince herself to relax.

She crept out of the bedroom. Toni and Cheryl had taken residence in Archie and Veronica's room, and that door was firmly closed. Betty hadn't been thinking very hard about the configuration of the other two residents, yet when she passed the second bedroom and saw Chuck and Ethel moving together and moaning, she was completely taken off guard. The door was open, probably because they weren't used to a third pair of people wandering around. Betty tiptoed past as quick as she could, completely unwilling to engage in an awkward conversation between the three of them if they saw her.

It should have been obvious,since there was only one more bed and Chuck wasn't camped out on a couch.

In the living room, Sweet Pea was sitting up, leg bouncing and staring at the wall. He glanced up when Betty entered.

"Can't sleep either, eh?"

From even the living room, Betty could hear the creaking of a bed and the breathy moans and winced, unable to answer Sweet Pea's question at the moment.

"Ugg, yeah, I heard that too," Sweet Pea shuddered, "I mean, good for him, I guess."

"They just, I don't understand!" Betty said, "He was awful to her last year. He...ah, I dunno, I just didn't see it." Betty didn't really want to get into Chuck's whole backstory right now, but all that aside.

"The end of the world brings strange couples together." He looked pointedly between the pair of them. He patted the couch next to him, an invitation for her to sit.

"Yeah, as platonic companions." Betty made a face right back, "Not lovers? Fuck buddies?"

"There's nothing like good ole fear to get two people in the sack. Do you know how many kids were probably conceived on December 20th, 2012? Like, a ton, I'm sure." He said.

"They were about six years off," Betty rolled her eyes, "No one was guessing mid-May as the end of it all."

"Maybe the hate-sex is great?" Sweet Pea shrugged, "I guess I don't care. I guess I'm just glad that there's still some pleasure happening, somewhere."

"I hope they're being safe," Betty rubbed her arms. She wondered if Sweet Pea would laugh at her for that being her first thoughts about this, but instead, he just blinked.

"Yeah. Having a kid, even accidently right now, would not only be irresponsible, but dangerous, hella difficult, and just all around a bad idea." He said, one of the few times Betty heard his tone go absolutely serious. Betty wondered if she should bring it up, awkwardly, to Ethel the next morning. Sweet Pea was looking at her, head tilted. He patted the couch more firmly.

"Stop pacing. It's annoying." He said. Since all he'd done was pace at the Lodge's apartment, Betty was tempted to argue that point, but didn't really have the energy.

Betty sat next to him.

"This house feels too big," She wasn't sure why she admitted that, but then again, they'd gotten used to talking about things in the last couple weeks. After the first awkward weeks of silence, slowly, Sweet Pea was opening up. Betty was too.

"Uh-huh," Sweet Pea swallowed, agreeing quietly.

"That's why you couldn't sleep?" Betty guessed.

"Maybe." Sweet Pea looked at his feet.

"I'm not saying you crawl into the bed, but maybe, if you brought the blankets there...we could switch off on the bed, night to night."

"Betty Cooper, platonically inviting me into her bedroom? Scandalous," Sweet Pea whistled, and Betty would feel self-conscious, except for the fact Sweet Pea was already gathering his stuff, "Well, night's wasting." He motioned.

Sweet Pea took a very long time adjusting himself on the floor beneath her, which was still soft and carpeted. She was sure he took a long time just to piss her off, but she realized it wouldn't be Sweet Pea if he didn't. And, once they both had stopped shifting around, Betty closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his breaths as he fell asleep. She dozed off not long after.

June 10th, 2018 (Day)

Cheryl might have made a comment about his move the next morning, but no one else seemed too concerned about it. Plus, she could tell that Sweet Pea was ready to defend her honor, or his. Either way, he seemed completely ready to vouch for the fact that he'd slept on the floor and nothing at all was going on. From the narrowed glare he gave both Toni and Cheryl, he seemed to be daring them to even think about commenting. His power as the leader of the Serpents shut both their mouths. The end of the world had bigger problems than Sweet Pea moving in the the room with Betty, very platonically as Sweet Pea enunciated to no one in particular.

Betty had an chat with Ethel about condoms, to which Ethel replied that Chuck had raided a whole Walgreens' worth and they were good. That was also the last time Betty or Sweet Pea made any comment about anyone's sexual activities. Chuck and Ethel might have also tried to be quieter, since now they knew someone had heard the night previous. Betty didn't hear any noise from Toni or Cheryl's room, not a peep.

Betty and Sweet Pea switched out sleeping on the bed every night, just to be fair. Sweet Pea was a gentleman enough to make sure no one thought badly of Betty, but not quite enough of one to let her take the bed every single night.

They stayed there for only four days before Toni told the pair that her and Cheryl would be moving on in the morning.

"But why?" Betty shook her head, "It's safe here!"

"It was also just a stop along the way," Toni shrugged, "We're going to find my brother. He's in New York, last I heard."

"Toni, it's been a month," Sweet Pea crossed his arms, "Don't be stupid." From the way Toni rounded on him, Betty wouldn't have been shocked if they started throwing punches.

"I'm not being stupid," Toni's fists clenched and Cheryl shot him a deathly glare, "Are you going to tell me I can't go, all great second-in-command?" Her tone was biting.

"Right now, with Jughead MIA, I am the first in command." Sweet Pea's voice grew dark, darker than she'd ever heard. He was pulling rank, something she could see he hated to do.

"So what? Are you going to command me not to? You'd be pretty shitty if you did and I would never forgive you." Toni said.

Sweet Pea looked torn before giving a slow shake of his head, "No, of course not-,"

"Then butt the hell out! I never asked what you thought of it." Toni shoved his chest hard. Sweet Pea didn't even budge. He flexed his fingers, pinching the bridge of his nose. She saw Sweet Pea very carefully trying not to explode at Toni.

"I'm just pointing out that New York is bound to be a thousand times worse than Riverdale and he'd have to be pretty good to still be around." Sweet Pea said. Betty clicked her tongue. Sometimes, Sweet Pea was intelligent. He was deceptively clever, she'd decided. And, it was all well to be the one to fly off the handle when he wasn't a leader, but having other people's lives his responsibility made him more logical, slower to anger. Slower than before, at least.

"He's that good," Toni said resolutely, "I have to look, Sweet Pea! You stayed three weeks in a town of the dead, so don't you dare tell me to not be personal about shit. You aren't going to change my mind."

She got up right in his face, and in that moment, something seemed to click in Sweet Pea's mind. Maybe it was the realization that Toni wasn't bluffing and she couldn't be budged. Instead of lashing out at her, Sweet Pea spun abruptly.

Sweet Pea kicked a chair over, stalking away and muttering under his breath, glaring hard at her.

"I take it you're going too?" Betty asked Cheryl weakly.

"Of course," Cheryl's eyebrows knit together, "Where my amour goes, so do I," She patted Toni's hand gently.

"You should come too, Betty," Chuck offered, "I don't know about you, but I'd rather meet up with a whole group of survivors as compared to just a group of high school kids. There has to be others that are making it near New York."

"Uhm," Betty frowned, looking back at Sweet Pea, picking at the beds of her nails. Sweet Pea had stormed out of the house.

"Betty, you know us, longer than you've known him." Ethel pointed out. She still hadn't warmed up to him. Far as Betty knew, Sweet Pea had never done anything to Ethel so Betty was pretty miffed about this imaginary prejudice.

"I'll think about it." She whispered. She didn't want to say goodbye to more people, not when she'd just found them. Plus, as much as she had hated to admit it when she'd originally found out, Cheryl as her family too and that blow was the hardest. And yet...something in her gut was telling her not to go to New York. Betty didn't believe in superstitions, gut feelings, what have you...she also hadn't believed in flesh eating undead cannibals. She was a little more inclined to listen to that small voice in her head than ever before.

She found Sweet Pea out on the docks, staring at the rippling lake. She saw he had one of the maps he'd knicked from a gas station splayed out. His fingers were tracing the route to New York. Betty had thought he was with her. Well, she wasn't going to stop him, and of course he'd want to stay with his people.

"I'm not going to New York." She said out loud, taking off her socks and shoes and dipping her feet in just a bit. Just to feel the tingle of the water, "But if you want to go, you should."

Sweet Pea seemed less inflamed, and now just made a 'meh' sound. He very carefully folded the map.

"Those are your people, your group. The group you were looking for. Some," She continued, truly not wanting him to feel tied to her. She was choosing not to go for her own reasons, not because of his response after all. Plus, she could see the indecision playing on his face, "And so I'll survive by myself." It was terrifying to admit, but Betty was strong. She wasn't going to have Sweet Pea resent her forever, not out of some weird obligation to keep her safe because Jughead had been his alpha.

She touched his shoulder, a friendly gesture, before standing.

"Well, I'm not going either." Sweet Pea's voice carried when she was nearly back to the shore. He turned, "No serpent left behind. That's you too, Betty." He said, pointing at the jacket she still wore.

"Not even really," She said, downplaying it, "Just by your word of what would have happened. Not what did." In reality, it still felt strange wearing this jacket. She didn't not want to be part of this world. She'd done the Serpent dance, so clearly, that wasn't the issue. The issue is that it felt fractured and a little too late for new members to join up.

Sweet Pea stood, cupping his hands with water.

"I'm the leader when Jughead's gone, aren't I?" He asked her. Betty narrowed her eyes, unsure where he was going with it, but nodded.

He dumped the lakewater unceremoniously over her face. She sputtered, blinking and trying not to swallow it.

"Now punch me."

"What?"

"Punch me. I'm a big girl. Imagine I'm your dad." He said.

Betty gave him the darkest, angriest look she could muster, "I'm not going to punch you, Sweet Pea."

"Just do it, Cooper. Or, are you afraid?" He teased, "Let's be honest, it'll probably hurt you more than it will hurt me." He grinned and she had been egging to do it for a while now, but had only half thought about it. She balled her fingers into a fist and aimed for his chin.

"Congrats," Sweet Pea rubbed his chin, "You're a serpent."

"What was the water for?" Betty asked, rubbing her knuckles. Sweet Pea grasped her wrist, sinking her hand into the lake to soothe her cracked skin. Once it seemed Betty got the idea, he let her wrist go, standing above her and snickering to himself.

"Baptismal, ritual something or other." Sweet Pea patted her head. "Seemed like the right thing to do. Now can I say no serpent left behind?" He rested his elbow on her head, and she tried to shake him off but he kept fast.

Betty gave a deep sigh, "Fine. Yeah. You can come with me, or stay here, whatever." As soon as she agreed, he lessened the pressure, standing back. She turned to see him looking across the lake.

Sweet Pea rubbed his hands, "Excellent."


	4. Track 3: Invincible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is Invincible by Ok Go

_ June 14th, 2018 _

That night, they all got a little drunk. They toasted to the parting of friends and to Betty’s belated induction to the Serpents. Toni made Betty drunkenly memorized the Serpent code and Betty reprised her dance, but with clothes on this time. Well, some of her clothes. 

Betty stood on the coffee table in the living room, a bottle of Hiram’s best champagne in her fingers as she swayed slightly side to side. They’d arranged pillows below her to break the fall, in case she lost her balance. She was wearing what Toni had identified as a ‘bralette’ (but, to Sweet Pea, he wasn’t sure how it qualified as clothing), a thin tank top, and a pair of sports shorts. Over top of all of it was her Serpent’s jacket, hanging precariously from her shoulders. When she turned around, her shorts rode up and her jacket was far past her usual build, so it seemed like she was wearing no pants if she was viewed from the right angle. Sweet Pea leaned back on the lazy boy near as far back as it could go, swirling whisky between his teeth, tracing Betty’s movements. A part of him was surprised no one had called him out on the fact that he was watching her, but maybe everyone was too busy watching Betty too. She was sort of enchanting, he decided, from the soft pout of her lips to the way her bare feet hopped on the smooth wood. It was just like that moment so many moths ago he’d first taken notice of Betty Cooper at the Wyrm, but this time, he had every reason to be watching her.

Holy fuck, she was sort of beautiful, he decided. Even if she was Jughead’s girl, Sweet Pea found no fault in looking. No touching, he reminded himself firmly, but looking was allowed.

“Rule 1,” Toni asked, legs dangling as she sat on the top of the couch, a wild light glimmering in her eyes.

Betty steadied herself, passing the bottle neck to one of her hands so she could use her other hand to hold up a single finger. At first, Sweet Pea thought she was asking for a moment, until he realized she was counting the rules off.

“No serpent stands alone,” She said, her eyes catching Sweet Pea’s. She was likely thinking of their conversation on the dock. Sweet Pea remembers being read the rules to learn and being so relieved, hoping to find a family that would not leave him like all the rest did.

“Rule two!” 

“If a serpent is killed or imprisoned, their family will be taken care of,” Betty said, a fond smile. Sweet Pea didn’t have any extended family for this rule to refer to, but all the same, he was pleased that this was the second rule. He knew that maybe Betty was thinking that, if the world was different, having some assurance of her family’s safety and well-being was comforting. Well, Alice was already a serpent but still.

“Rule Three,” Cheryl interjected, sipping wine as red as her lips.

“A serpent never shows cowardice.” 

“Rule four.”

“No serpent is left for dead.” Betty had questioned him on this one when he was going over them with her today. It was similar to the first rule, but Sweet Pea always interpreted it differently. The first rule just meant that you have your buddy’s back, that if they need you, you are there. No serpent is left for dead indicates something deeper, something that’s about bravery and chivalry without ever outright saying it. It means it literally and figuratively. You take care of your own. You save your own. And, once you’re in, you’re always in.

“Rule five.” 

During this, Ethel and Chuck were watching with rapt attention, likely never having been so close to so many serpents before. Betty had been in this world awhile, so the customs didn’t surprise her much any more. Chuck was watching like they were a whole other culture, Ethel’s face was pinched and Sweet Pea wondered if she was re-thinking her assumptions of their kind.

She hadn’t been mean to him since he arrived, but she didn’t go out of her way to include him in anything. Perfectly fine, Sweet Pea found her a little insufferable. She was politely nice to Betty, which Betty seemed a little put-off by. It wasn’t really Sweet Pea’s place to say, but if Ethel had just changed her attitude only because Betty was wearing a jacket now, she was sort of a shitty person. But, what did he know?

“Rule six, the final rule.” Toni said, trying to place a sense of seriousness on her lips but failing rather miserably. Betty looked at her hand- already all five fingers up- and to her other one, holding the bottle. With a decisive grin, she chugged the remainder of the champagne, dropping the glass onto the carpet to hold up her sixth finger. Sweet Pea couldn’t help but grin, the smile spreading across his face at her at her actions. 

“In unity, there is strength.” She said.

“In unity, there is strength,” Sweet Pea, Toni, and Cheryl all echoed at varying paces. There was a beat of silence before Toni nearly tacked Betty off the table by launching herself at her, accompanied by a high-pitch squeal.

“You’re one of us now, for real, Betty!” She said. Sweet Pea smirked, pulling out his phone from his pocket and playing ‘I Got A Feeling’ in celebration. It took a second, but Betty righted herself from the attack-hug and hopped back onto the table and began to dance.

It wasn’t the seductive twirling she’d done on the pole at the Wyrm, but this was light-hearted and fun and carefree. Betty spun on her heels, her blond hair flying out as she giggled uncontrollably. 

That got Toni dancing, as well as Ethel of all people. Ethel managed to rope Chuck into one dance, and he took her hand and spun her. Cheryl joined in after Toni poking her into annoyance and at one point, Betty looked at Sweet Pea as if to say ‘you too’. Sweet Pea just held up his palms, shaking his head. Sweet Pea didn’t dance, or wouldn’t right now, right here. Betty just sighed, but let him remain and he found he was perfectly happy just to watch it all unfold.

It was the most fun Betty had had since this whole thing started. Sweet Pea just sat back on the recliner, watching her and grinning. He got happier when he was drunk. She supposed, under these circumstances, so did she. Sweet Pea provided the music, clicking through different genres and decades, finding at least one song that pleased each person. They were not so careful about making noise, probably not as careful as they should have been, because tonight was about letting go, because who knew the next time they’d have such a luxury?

They all fell asleep in a lump together on the floor, a tangle of limbs and shot glasses that were once filled with vodka. 

_ June 15th, 2018 _

In the morning, all of them still alive but very much hungover, they made their parting goodbyes. Betty wasn’t sure what was worse; never having the chance to say goodbye at all or knowing, deep down, that this could likely be the last time you’d ever see someone. That, if someone were placing bets, it was a safe guess one group would be dead not long after. How do you say goodbye and say everything all at once? How to do you find the words to express feelings for people that you know very well or people you know only in passing? 

Sweet Pea seemed just as fumbling as she did, just staring at Toni for a long time, face stoney. His whole posture slumped low and Betty could tell by the way he held his jaw he was trying hard not to cry. For as strong as he seemed, it was moments like this that reminded Betty how young they all were; kids, really. Kids dealing with issues much beyond their reach and completely alone in it. 

“I wish there was a way to let you know how to find us,” Toni was crying as she hugged Sweet Pea. Betty had learned enough to know they’d known each other since first grade. They were like brother and sister. Her own blood had won her over, though. If Betty didn't know Sweet Pea better, she’d argue that might have hurt his feelings, since Toni’s other brother was six years their senior and had always been sort of a rat of a person. 

“I want to say also that I’ll see you again one day but…” Toni took a step back. There wasn’t much to say between them, so Betty wondered if they’d done their goodbyes earlier, out of curious ears.

“We don’t know,” Chuck cut in, “I sincerely hope we do meet again.” He sounded very genuine and Betty even let him hurt her, “Good luck to you both.” 

“May your paths lead you where it needs to,” Cheryl said, which was just like her to be strange a cryptic and make Sweet Pea look a little uncomfortable. He sent Betty a look over Cheryl’s head, one that looked halfway between amused and weirded-out. 

“Eh, thanks?” He said, a little unsure on how to reply. Cheryl just smiled at him as though she knew a secret he did not, but Betty told Sweet Pea she always looked like that.

_ June 15th 2018 (Night) _

They foursome left at dawn. 

“We’re never gunna see them again,” Sweet Pea sighed as he watched their car speed away.

“You sound so sure.” Betty said, closing the door tightly and double-checked their safeguards. Now that it was back to the two of them, her instincts were on high-alert. It was scary how quickly her mind fell back into double-person survival mode. She supposed this was just going to be her new normal.

“You said you had a gut feeling about New York,” Sweet Pea pulled his arms across his chest, almost looking ill, “I have a feeling about this.” 

Sweet Pea spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch, looking like a kicked puppy. He moped, a blanket curled tightly over him, staring out at the rippling lake. Betty found ways to busy herself, to make herself not think about the group of four that had just left. Or that her friends had been here and were no longer. Or that Jughead was gone. Or-

She pursed her lips in frustration, shaking her head. That is exactly why she threw herself into things, because her thoughts were poison of late. 

At one point, after Betty forced Sweet Pea to eat dinner, he looked up at her.

“Before, this morning,” he said, startling her. His voice was ragged and he still was pouting, “Toni told me something. She didn’t know if we should tell you. I wasn’t, but-” 

He broke off. Betty wondered if he was going to say that she had a right to know or on the flip side, he wanted Betty to be as miserable right now as he was. Either way, he seemed to consider it for a second longer before speaking again. Betty was behind him, reading through the books on the shelf, but completely paused, unsure on if she should look at him or not.

“It’s about Jughead.” He added. Betty wanted to scream ‘tell me’ but found her lips would not move. She stayed absolutely frozen in place. 

“Ah, fucking hell,” She heard Sweet Pea mutter underneath his breath before continuing, “She didn’t...she wasn’t even sure if what she saw was true, so she didn’t think there was a reason to broadcast it but I should know because, you know, I’m second in command and so…” He began, rambling. In that moment, Betty feared the worst. At the least, she knew whatever he was about to say was nothing good.

Sweet Pea didn’t seem to notice that her back had gone stiff or that she had not uttered a peep yet, “Toni, while trying to evacuate,” He said, gathering his thoughts and speaking with a smooth tone, one tinged with apology, “Thinks she might have seen Jughead get bitten.”

The book that was in Betty’s hand slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground. She felt her legs buckle next as she collapsed in a puddle on the floor.

First, she felt a biting anger. An anger that Toni knew this and did not tell her. Even if she missaw things, she at least thought she saw enough to tell Sweet Pea, to worry about this.

Next, she felt agony. If it was true, Jughead was as good as dead.

After, Betty just felt nothing at all.

Sweet Pea looked up from the side of the couch, cussing. He got up, stumbling over where he was tangled in the blanket.   
“I knew it was a bad idea to tell you,” He said, going to help her up.

“Don’t touch me!” Betty snapped out of her fugue, standing up and stalking far away. She didn’t hear Sweet Pea call after her and Betty locked herself in one of the bedrooms to try to deal with this information.

When she came back out, Sweet Pea likely assumed she’d sobbed up there until she could no more. That wasn’t true. Betty hadn’t shed a tear. She’d wanted to, but hadn’t. She didn’t know why.

She hoped it was because a part of her knew Jughead was alive and you didn’t cry over the living. 

The pair of them existed in Lodge Lodge in a state of anger and disappointment. At one point, when a group of walkers were too close, Betty- who was just sitting and looking out a window- watched Sweet Pea grab his baseball bat from the door and go outside, taking them all out with more violence than was necessary. Right now, Betty sort of wanted to have that same outlet for a release too.

When Sweet Pea returned inside, his whole body was covered in walker guts and he was heaving hard. There was a wild glint in his eyes, one that Betty would have found dangerous before.

“I think,” He said while catching his breathe, “I’m going to put nails in the bat, to make it hit harder. Like Steve Harrington. You ever seen Stranger Things? And I-,” 

“Sweet Pea,” Betty cut him off with a sharp edge, “I don’t really care.”

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea said after a beat, blinking, “You’re right. OG Bat is the best.” 

She frowned in disgust, “You are so gross right now. Go wash off outside.” She instructed. 

“Ack, fine, fine.” Sweet Pea waved a hand, “Want to come watch?” He asked.

When Betty began to stammer and blush red, he gave her an utterly innocent look, “So that you can tell me when I’m properly clean, Cooper. God, what were you thinking of?” 

Any other time, Betty might be relieved he was feeling good enough to joke with her. After dropping the Jughead bomb on Betty not too long ago, however, Betty wasn’t really in the mood for his antics.

“Fuck off, Sweet Pea,” She snapped, stalking away, “You could go drown in a lake for all I care.” 

She felt bad about it later, because Sweet Pea had done her a solid by telling her about Jughead. In truth, she was mad at Toni. But Toni and the rest of her group might be dead already, so she thought it was poor form to be mad at someone dead and thus she was taking her anger out on Sweet Pea. 

When she apologized that night, Sweet Pea hardly seemed upset. 

“I get it,” He said after a second, “I guess I’m sorry too. You seemed so put-together after they left and I just lay there, like a slump. I wanted to…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but Betty knew. She didn’t think she could fault Sweet Pea for being who he was; a selfish serpent. This wasn’t new. She knew this. She’d feel unusually disappointed, had he not apologized about it.

_ June 17th, 2017 _

They never talked about what their plans were now, but they both knew this place wasn’t going to last. It was too close to other major cities to not have tragedy strike. They let themselves sit here, work through their muddled feelings in relative safety. Once Sweet Pea was feeling better, he went through and ransacked Lodge Lodge just as he’d done at the apartment back in Riverdale. 

“It’s the end of the world. I hardly think you need Hermes ties,” Betty said when he stuffed the fabric into his ‘take’ bag.

“Oh, so you think!” Sweet Pea said, “I’ve never in my life been rich enough to even breathe near this shit. I’m going to enjoy it now that I can.” He said. He dangled a pair of heels in front of her, “And you can’t tell me that these Louboutins aren’t just screaming your name?” 

“No,” Betty crossed her arms, “Heels are a stupid, stupid idea in this climate.” She pointed out. She did spy a Prada handbag in the back and couldn’t stop herself. When Sweet Pea gave her a raised eyebrow with a smirk, she argued, “You always needs bags for things. This, Sweet Pea, is a reasonable thing to take. I’m surprised you even know the names of these brands.”   
“What, cuz I’m a guy? Sexist much?” Sweet Pea said, but he was only teasing, “Naw, it was Fangs. He always liked this expensive shit. Said one day he was gunna make it big and be able to buy these things like Hiram always did.” Sweet Pea ran the pads of his fingers across one of the ties, “I guess, I’m taking them because I really want to see Fangs again one day and he’d flip if I gave him this stuff.” 

“Does it matter that there’s no one around anymore to be impressed that you’re wearing it?” Betty asked, an honest question.

“I think just wearing it for himself would be good enough.” Sweet Pea decided.

And they continued going through the house for supplies.

It was a couple days past the month anniversary when they heard the screaming across the lake, the screaming of people being eaten alive. When the screaming stopped, they didn’t think it was because the walkers had been dealt with. It was because the walkers had killed them. And that’s when they sort of realized that this place was going to fall and it was time to go. Neither of them had to speak as they quickly gathered their things and began packing the car to leave again. 

Sweet Pea got on the top of the roof, peering through a pair of binoculars, “The herd’s about fifteen away. We should be gone in at least eight.” He said, “You finish packing.” 

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do?”  Betty asked, miffed that he was vanishing, shoving another box into the back of the van. 

“Just...pack,” He urged and Betty rolled her eyes. She wasn’t going to let his weird moment take away from getting out safely and as prepared as they could have been. She didn’t grab his stuff, though, only their shared supplies and her own things. If Sweet Pea didn’t think it was worth it to be loading now, he could leave his stuff. 

When there were only Sweet Pea’s garbage bags of Hermes ties, bad 80s CDs, and god knows what else, she went to find him. Looking at her watch, they still had three minutes before their eight was up.

She found him at the post, the one where Veronica and Archie had written something. Her nagging she’d been about to unleash on him stopped as she just watched what he was doing. When he turned, he jumped to see her right behind him. 

“Thought we might leave our mark too. Just in case.” He said, tucking his pocket knife into his shoe. He’d written their own names along with the day’s date. 

It was a soft, almost touching thing for him to do, but Betty nor Sweet Pea could do much more than catch each other’s eyes as they continued the pack the truck. He managed to convince her into helping him with his stuff, because the sooner it was in the van, the sooner they could ‘blow this popsicle joint’ as Sweet Pea said.

“All good.” Betty said, sliding into the driver’s seat, “C’mon Sweets!” She’d taken to starting to use the nickname Toni had called him, feeling more comfortable with him than before. 

Sweet Pea was sprinting across the gravel as a walker emerged from the trees. Sweet Pea was well on his way to outpacing it and the car was running, so Betty was ultimately dismayed when he paused to go back to the walker. There was a look on his face, one like someone was inches away from seeing a hurricane pick them up. Betty did not understand the look. She did not understand what he was doing.

He wasn’t so reckless, he had a certain affinity with life and he liked to keep himself there. So, running toward a walker was something he’d call ‘doing a Jughead’, or, putting one’s self in unnecessary danger. Had he lost his fucking mind? 

She yelled out the window, flashing the headlights and saw a glimpse of the walker coming toward Sweet Pea. She was more confused for her friend, though, and terror gripped her. She held her breath and gripped the steering wheel tight, counting mississippi's in her head, as though that would make time continue faster. Sweet Pea smashed the head in of the walker four times, and then two times after it stopped moving, and nabbed something from the arm area before leaping into the car. They barely had the door closed before they were skidding away, missing the herd shambling toward the Lodge Lodge. Sweet Pea was watching in the rearview and Betty only saw a glimpse of the way that the walkers felled the doors. 

Betty gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. She realized what she was doing and loosened her grip, but not before sending Sweet Pea a furious snarl. 

“What?” Sweet Pea noticed her expression.

“What the hell was that?” Betty’s voice was low, dangerous. 

“I-,” 

“No! God, what were you thinking? Clearly, nothing! You could have been killed, Sweet Pea!” She thundered, swerving left and right through the woods, pushing maybe a little too hard on the gas.

“Didn't know you cared.” Sweet Pea said, and he usually would have had a tone of haughtiness to him, if he wasn’t grabbing the sides of the car and didn’t look a bit green, “Wouldya calm the brakes, there, Coop-”

“Shut it!” She said and Sweet Pea didn’t speak. Cooper looked and realized she was going near 100 MPH and did cool down to a reasonable 70 for the winding roads out of the woods. When she collected her breaths back, she gave Sweet Pea a look.

“I...I don’t want to be in this alone. Plus, I’d have to kill you,” Her voice broke a little, “What the hell was so important about kill that one fucking walker, Sweet Pea?” 

In response, Sweet Pea just held up a watch. He turned the back of it around and Betty let herself be distracted from the road for just a moment, just enough to see the writing on the back.

_ ‘To HL, may we have many wondrous years more, heart HL.’ _

Betty frowned, thinking back to what the walker had looked like, although she’d only given it a passing glance. Now that she was focusing herself to think to it, she couldn’t not see the imagine that had floated to her mind.

The realization made her skid to a stop on the road, spinning around and looking at Sweet Pea with wild eyes.

“That was Hiram?” She said. 

Sweet Pea gave a tense nod. 

Betty felt something rise in her throat and before she could stop herself, she’d thrown open the door and was vomiting on the side of the road. Sweet Pea jumped down, holding her hair back and patting her back.

She’d seen grosser things, but it was the lightbulb moment that she’d just seen her best friend’s father’s head brutally caved in and his gray matter spilled across the pavement. It was one of the first walkers she’d seen that she’d known very closely. Yeah, he was a shitty person, but that still didn’t mean that she was gleeful about this.

Sweet Pea might have been. 

“You feel like you’ve avenged it now?” She managed, using one of the water bottles they had to clean out her mouth.

“I wish I coulda been the one to kill him the first time, but yeah,” He did seem less anxious, “It felt really satisfying to bludg...I mean, to kill him again.” He switched when he noticed Betty looked a little green again, “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. I don’t know why I’m acting so strangely about it.” Betty sighed.

“Probably because you’re wondering if the same fate happened to the rest of them.” Sweet Pea said. Betty felt the panic invade her, until Sweet Pea shook his head, “He was wearing some of the same clothes that he was wearing the day he had your friend arrested. Which means he hadn’t changed. A man with a closet like his? He wouldn’t spend more than a couple hours in each set.” Sweet Pea scoffed, “And we know that Veronica and Andrews made it to at least ten days ago. I think they’re okay.” 

“Gut feeling?” Betty asked.

“Gut feeling,” He agreed. 

Betty climbed back into the driver’s seat, sighing. 

“How would you feel about going to Arizona?” She asked. When Sweet Pea shrugged, she continued to blabber, “I know you said it’s stupid to look for people and I know that Jughead isn’t specifically your favorite, but I just gotta look, and-,” 

“Hey, yeah, cool.” Sweet Pea agreed, cutting her off. 

They drove without talking for the next couple hours. Sweet Pea had managed to find an aux cable and played whatever songs he liked on his ipod while Betty’s mind wandered. They made great time, considering that they didn't have to obey traffic laws anymore and there wasn’t much traffic to meet to begin with. There were a couple places where the cars bottlenecked, abandoned, but overall they covered ground. 

Sweet Pea never expressed displeasure about their course, but Betty couldn’t let it go. She’d been told she had a problem with that. Not letting things go, that is. It had helped her catch Jason’s killer and The Black Hood, so she liked her natural tendency, but she knew it could also be a negative personality trait. She sort of wished she had just let this one go, in hindsight.

“Are you sure you’re fine with going to Arizona? Because just say it, and we can try somewhere else first.” She asked again when they found a place to sleep for the night.

“Yes. I’m fine.” Sweet Pea sent her a look that told her she should drop it. They had a tiny, tiny fire set up. They didn’t want it to get too big in case that would alert walkers and put up a homing beacon for them, but the night air was cool enough to need some sort of warmth. Betty was not about to snuggle up to Sweet Pea, so she’d take the risk of a fire anyday. 

“I just...it’s been what I’ve suggested this whole time. You haven’t offered up any plans.” She pointed out, “It’s about my friends, these places. I’ve been selfish.” 

“And?” 

“Well,” Betty ventured, knowing even as she said it she should have just stopped there, “Don’t you have anyone or any other family to seek out?”

“Trying to get rid of me?” He asked, almost teasing, but his eyes flashing. They were inside of a convenience store, in the back offices, munching on chips. The fire was contained in a metal box. Betty uncorked a Dr. Pepper, which had long gone warm, but still had fizz. 

“Not at all. I just figured there were others you must wanna see…try to make contact with...besides people in Riverdale.” Betty had a whole list of others from around the USA, and even in other countries, she was worried about. The people from her internship. People she’d played with at camp as a kid. People she knew from the internet. She had a hard time imaging that Sweet Pea seemed totally cool with her taking the reins, that there was no one but the Serpents he was even a glimmer curious about.

“No.” His voice was rough. Betty hadn’t really heard, though, and was still continuing on from her last question. 

“But, what about grandparents?” Betty asked, “Or, other serpents. Like, ones who went away from Riverdale. Would any of them-,” 

“Just fucking drop it, Cooper!” Sweet Pea was suddenly in her face, going from 0 to 100 so swiftly that Betty choked a little on her soda, “What do you want me to say? That I don’t have fucking anyone? That I’m a goddamn loner? That my father skipped town as soon as my mother came back with a positive test?” 

“Sweet Pea,” Betty weakly tried to stop him, knowing full well she’d crossed a line, however, Sweet Pea was too furious to let him cut him off. She didn’t want him to say that. She hadn’t meant to be invading his personal life. She just didn’t want this whole adventure in the apocalypse to be about her. Sweet Pea was on his feet, still yelling.

“Or that my mother was a fucking bitch that treated me like shit and died of an overdose when I was twelve? That I was the one that found her? That I survived pretty much on my own until a year later FP found me and helped me into the Serpents? That it’s not too much different, I’m still on my own, expect sometimes someone gives a damn about me? That they might bring me a bag of pasta if I don’t have food, which more often, I don’t? That the serpents are the only family I fucking know and besides you and Toni and Cheryl everyone else is likely dead? That I’m alone again?” 

“Sweets,” Betty shook her head, swallowing hard, “I didn’t…” 

“You knew Jughead, Betty. Why would you think my life was any better than his?” He asked seriously and Betty came up with no answers. He grabbed her, yanking her up to be inches away from him. Betty was about to say that he was hurting her, until he realized he wasn’t. He was holding her wrist tightly, but not to the point of pain. The realization that he wasn’t trying to hurt her, mixed with the tension that was pulled taught across his face caused Betty to go blank for just a second. 

She looked at his eyes and saw tears on the edges, one of the most surprising thing she’d seen from him. When he realized what she saw, Sweet Pea jutted his chin up so that she didn’t have a good view anymore.

He was still in her face. He grabbed her fingers unexpectedly, trailing his hand up from her wrist to ghost over her palms and finally to her fingers. He held onto a couple by the knuckles, dragging them across his tattoo on his neck.

“Wanna know why it’s here?” He asked, voice low, almost dangerous. Betty felt her fingers brush against a rough texture, “To cover up where my momma burned me when I didn’t cook her dinner one night. To remind me that there were other people besides the woman that gave a damn. That I was stronger than that. I guess I wouldn’t be here, alive, if I wasn’t.” 

Betty felt tears prickle at the edge of her eyes. She felt sick and angry he had to go through this. She felt stupid for assuming that his life wouldn’t have been as bad, if not worse, than Jughead’s. She felt like she needed to do something, because Sweet Pea was out here all alone with her, his entire family gone and he was showing signs of falling apart. Maybe that’s why he’d made her a serpent. Maybe he was so desperately trying to repair, remake a family.

She threw her arms around him, pulling him down to hug her, which was hard to do when he was so tall. 

“Think a hug will make it better, Betty?” He asked, trying to sound still upset with her, but the undertone told her he was touched by the gesture. Her fingers rubbed against his neck tattoo again. She could feel when he swallowed hard and she could feel the pounding of his heart. It jumped like a jackrabbit and she could tell he was unused to people initiating such movement. Sure, Toni had hugged him, but Betty could guess that Toni was in a totally different category than anyone else. So, to show him that she was here, she hugged him harder. After a long moment, Sweet Pea’s arms pulled around her too, and he rested his chin on her hair. Betty’s hand was still lightly resting on his neck, and she pulled it down to pull tight across his back like her other arm. 

“I was really stupid,” She admitted, “that was all stupid. I’m sorry you had to go through that. It’s not much, but I am.” She said. 

“She’s dead, and has been for awhile,” Sweet Pea sighed, but didn’t shake Betty off him, “I was serious before. You’re part of my family now, so I only need to go where you are.” It would have sounded romantic in any other context, but Betty knew this wasn’t the case. There was a ‘love’ there, she considered, a small growing one, one between two people that were in something for better or worse. 

“You don’t care about finding Jughead? FP?” She asked, pulling back.

“FP more than Jughead, though, I wouldn’t be upset if we were to find Jug. Not anymore. I just wanna survive this goddamn nightmare. And if it comes to it, I don’t want to die alone.” He said. 

“That’s understandable,” Betty thought of Hiram. He’d likely died alone both of his times, which was a sad way to go, “I always thought you got a neck tattoo to be a badass and get laid.” She admitted.

Sweet Pea laughed, but it still sounded a little bit pained, “Well, those reasons too.” He agreed, “A whole month without sex. I don’t know how I’m managing.” 

Sweet Pea not being a virgin didn’t surprise Betty. She wasn’t sure he was as experienced as he was passing himself off as right now, because Sweet Pea liked to inflate his ego around Betty. She decided to send him back a sassy smirk. 

“Me neither,” Betty agreed, and Sweet Pea swung his head around, “What? You think me and Jughead hadn’t done it?” She asked with wide innocent eyes.

“Frankly? Naw. Didn’t think Jughead had it in him. Congrats?” He offered, raising his palms up. 

“Jughead totally has it in him,” Betty felt the need to defend her...she frowned, realizing that the word ‘boyfriend’ hadn’t sprung ot her head immediately.

“What?” Sweet Pea asked.

“I...hmm,” Betty chewed on her lip. What were her and Jughead? When the other was probably thinking the other was dead, even if they had a little bit of hope? When she hadn’t seen him at all in a month? When the world was ending, “Would you say that Jughead and I are still...dating?” She asked, trying to explain her dilemma. 

“Do you date at the end of the world?” Sweet Pea quirked an eyebrow. 

Betty slumped her shoulders lower. 

“I mean, if you want to still be dating, you can,” Sweet Pea offered weakly, seeing her expression.

“I just don’t know. I mean, it’s silly. With all the times we were off and on we only dated for maybe five or six months. And he said that he loved me after just like a month. It all felt like so much more time when we were chasing murders and everything. I never thought I would fall for someone so fast but I feel like I do and now, what if he’s gone? Do I spend the rest of my life hoping?” 

“It’s only been a month, Betts,” Sweet Pea shifted, “We might still find him.” 

Betty wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, “He used to call me Betts.” 

Sweet Pea matched her expression, “I know.” He whispered.

For some reason, that’s what sent Betty over the edge, and after that she just couldn't stop crying. She tried to bite her hand to keep herself from being too loud, and she hated that she just broke down in front of Sweet Pea, but the reality of it all weighed upon her. They’d been out here a month. More than a month. The world had been fucked up for nearly five weeks.

A month without Jughead. If someone had asked her how she would do that two months ago, she would have felt like her world was ending. Even when they were broken up, he wasn’t far away. 

But here she was, the world actually ended, and she’d survived. She wondered if it would feel this easy as the months wore on to continue to survive? 

“Hey, hey,” Sweet Pea looked unsettled at her crying, but scootched over, doing his best. He let her ease into his jacket and cry on his shirt, “I mean, who am I to judge love?” He pointed out, “What if it was?” 

“What if it wasn’t? And I’m sending myself on a suicide mission? And if I did, what if Toni was right and Jughead is already dead and he’s been dead this whole time?” Betty managed to ask. She saw Sweet Pea open his mouth, but no words followed as he realized he didn’t have anything to help console her, “I hate this! I hate this!” She threw her empty chip packets at the wall. 

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea whispered, and she hardly noticed- but indeed did after a second- when he curled his fingers protectively around her waist, pulling Betty in closer, “Me too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who reviewed! It really made me happy to see people liking this fic. If you are still liking it, please continue to review and make my long day at work better


	5. Track Four: Four Winds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took about two weeks, but yay, I finally have this new chapter up :) I am going to try to stick to updating this about every two weeks, get on SOME sort of schedule, you know?
> 
> I had a couple more reviews on this chapter, so thank you very much! I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Song for this chapter is Four Winds, specifically the cover by The Killers! Enjoy!

_June 18th, 2018_

They made their way back through the forest, towards Riverdale. Neither wanted to enter back into Riverdale, which meant they'd have to go around it, but both were okay with this.

"I don't even want to look at it," Sweet Pea had sighed, eyes averted from even the direction of their hometown. Betty understood. If she recalled how the town was only a couple weeks after the end of the world, she shuddered to think of how it would look now. Stopping in towns and seeing other small towns decimated and abandoned was hard, because every place would feel like Riverdale, but to go around and just reiterate that their childhood haunts, as well as their childhood innocence, had been destroyed...well, Betty couldn't phantom.

She even considered if it would be worth it to see if anyone else had turned back up, but short of a 100% assurance of someone's livelihood in that town, there was no way they were going to go.

It was on the way out of town that made Betty wish they'd just gone through town instead of taking the long way around. On one of the roads they were traveling on, one on the outskirts that was near Greendale and the river, they came across a pile of cars blocking the road.

Doors were thrown open and left saluting the pavement, luggage was strewn around the ground as though people had pilfered it or someone was looking in a hurry, a couple pieces of car bumpers or other metal around where one car had crashed into another. And, it looked the site of a murder, which it just very well might have been.

The pavement around the cluster of cars was brown with dried blood and bits of walker guts still was on the ground, sticky and crusty. There were two walkers lumbering around, and when their van stopped and realized they were going to have to move the cars to get through, they came up and started bumping into the side like roombas against a wall.

"I'll get this," Sweet Pea gave a dramatic sigh, reaching under his seat for his bat. Betty, though, rolled down a window just enough to reach a hand out and stabbed her walker in the brain. She offered the knife to Sweet Pea, who muttered but accepted it would be an easier kill. They stayed in the car to decide which cars they would move where first, and talked about if it was worth the time and effort to search these cars that might have nothing of value or if they should just get back on the road. Betty didn't want to turn down the opportunity to get supplies, but she was doubtful it would be worth their time to be out in the open, digging through cars. Sweet Pea thought that there might be some good shit that had been passed over, stuff that maybe weren't in stores. They bickered about it for a good ten minutes.

"Let's just move the cars and then we'll see how long it takes," Betty finally said, frustrated and growing very sweaty in the car already. The weather was starting to warm up, and it would only get warmer. It made the stench of the walkers that had been left out, as well as the ones they just killed, pretty gag-worthy.

Then, they rolled up their sleeves and began by pushing the first car off the side of the road. They just sort of needed to get them into the side ditch and gravity would do the rest of the work from there. After the first car, Sweet Pea dug around underneath the seats and came back up with a bag of weed, triumphant.

"People keep the best shit at their feet." Sweet Pea said.

"Yeah, okay, so there's that. We shouldn't be getting high until we're safe, and you could search all of these cars and not find anything else worth the time," Betty rolled her eyes.

"I bet you've never even done it," Sweet Pea said. When Betty raised a questioning eyebrow, he made a motion of smoking a joint.

"No," Betty felt her cheeks redden, "I haven't! I didn't want to, you know, ruin my chances into a good school."

"Seems so silly now," Sweet Pea snorted, "You could have been getting drunk and high and thrown in county jail every weekend and that might have been a better use of your time than memorizing french or shit." He waved a hand, "No matter, when we are safe, I'm gunna see what Betty Cooper looks like high."

"Il faudra me passer sur le corps," Betty shot back, hands on her hips. For a second, Sweet Pea just squinted at her and she felt a momentary flash of pride, until he laughed.

"Ca peut se faire," Sweet Pea replied back with a haughty smile, pointing at a dead walker, albeit in slightly broken and stumbling French, but French all the same. When Betty stood with her jaw hanging, Sweet Pea gave a delivish lick of his lips and a shrug, "I managed to get drunk, high, and learn French all at the same time. A little bit of German too. I like languages." He said, shrugging.

"But...but you weren't in French classes at Riverdale High," Betty said, frowning.

"Duolingo," Sweet Pea said, "Now, c'mon, weren't you the one saying no dallying about in the open?" He was jogging up the incline back to the cars. When Betty cleared her shock and arrived back up, he was coming back to a white Buick halfway smashed against a tree.

"I thought we were moving that one next?" Betty pointed to the mom van on the other side of the road.

"I, ahh," Sweet Pea said, head low, "We're already over here, let's just get this one."

"God, you're a terrible liar." Betty narrowed her eyes, walking past him with a snort. As soon as Sweet Pea grabbed her arm to stop her, Betty knew she had to go over there. She yanked her arm out and came around the car.

She stiffened when she saw what was behind the car.

"That's...that's Jughead's, isn't it?" Betty asked, but in reality, she didn't need to question. SHe'd been on the back of that enough times to know it personally.

"Mh-hmm," Sweet Pea agreed, standing behind her, forehead crinkled. He was staring at her intently, and she figured he knew why...he was waiting for her to break.

The bike itself was totaled, completely un-ridable. Bits of it were all over the road at least ten feet up. Betty bit the isnider of her cheeks and just swallowed hard.

"Well obviously, we need to move this too before we can keep going," Betty said, starting to use her legs to shove it to the side. Sweet Pea watched her for a moment more, "I mean, he could be fine still. He could be on the back of FP's ride, or they got a car, or-,"

"Yeah, no, you're right," Sweet Pea agreed, "No reason to think anything else." He said. Betty heaved out a sigh, just wanting to clear his bike as quick as possible. Sweet Pea began collecting metal bits in his arms to throw into the trees while Betty shoved the bike to the side. She checked in the bins on it, but found nothing. A part of her was hoping for one of his shirts or flannels or anything of his, but it was completely empty. That was a good thing, right? It meant that someone had to take things from it?

But there was a lot of blood around the bike. Far too much to settle Betty's nerves. It was also coming from the area that the bike had crashed around. Of course, she wasn't a doctor, so Betty couldn't say-especially from dried blood- what was too much to lose. And even then, they could have taken him to a clinic and stopped it themselves. FP seemed like the sort who would know random medical stuff. She tried to ignore the walker guts in the area too, and she liked to think that this was one that Jughead had killed.

She spied a part of the bike, a handlebar, under the van and got on her hands and knees to get it. As she pulled it out, it brought something soft with it.

"Hey, that first aid kit still in the front of the van? A piece of that metal just sliced my hand open like you wouldn't believe," Sweet Pea said, coming back toward her with a fist clenched tight, speaking through his teeth, "Betty?"

Betty sat on her haunches, staring at the gray crown hat in her lap, along with a scrap of a well-worn flannel. Both were ripped and covered in blood. She stuttered a couple half-baked, near words.

"Oh, damn," Sweet Pea shifted nervously on his feet before crouching down. His fist was dripping blood onto the pavement, "I mean, like his bike, that's not definitive proof-,"

"He's dead," Betty broke in, the articulation seeming to bounce through the empty roads. She pulled in a shaking breath, "He's dead, he's dead and I know it."

"I-," Sweet Pea shook his head.

"No, no, no…" Betty began to murur, cycling through grief and agony, curling up on the ground, pulling the hat close. Her fingers kneaded into it and her cheek pressed onto the gritty ground. The hope that she'd felt through everything, the hope that burned defiantly in her heart, was gone.

"It's just a hat. If it came down to life or a hat, well, it's obvious what-," Sweet Pea was still trying to tell her.

"It's not 'just' a hat," Betty whispered in such a small voice that she didn't think Sweet Pea heard it, "And his flannel is here too. I don't...he isn't...Sweet Pea, I just know it. I do, I do." She said, gasping out and feeling like someone was shoving her underwater and not letting her up. Sweet Pea looked just as solemn as Betty felt. Maybe, despite his words, he knew it too.

Sweet Pea wrapped his hand with a shirt, leaving her there to mourn. He moved all of the cars by himself, never asking Betty to move. Betty just lay there, inhaling the scent of Jughead that still lingered.

If Toni had seen him get bitten and that hadn't done him in, this did. She didn't know what happened, and despite not wanting to know, her mind couldn't stop shoving scenarios into her mind. He was bitten and didn't know that it killed you so he got out of town before he'd started to get the fever and they'd taken his body away. They'd been attacked by walkers and Jughead, knowing he was already bit, had stayed behind and had been eaten. He hadn't been bit, but had still perished, the walkers had overwhelmed him and they hadn't been able to save him.

It didn't matter, did it, though?

After the road was clear, Sweet Pea got low on the ground next to her.

"What are you doing?" She croaked, her voice rough.

"Paying respects with you, on the ground," Sweet Pea replied. Betty didn't have an answer to that. After a moment of silence, he looked her in the eye.

"We have to go, Betty. I know it's tempting to want to stay here-,"

"Stay here?" Betty frowned, jolting up, "I'm not stupid. I want to survive." Jughead would want her to survive, she knew. Her words weren't inspiring much belief, she realized, since she'd said it completely monotone.

"Oh, ah, great." Sweet Pea offered her a hand. She took it and he helped her up. Sweet Pea went to the van, checking the status of his hand. Betty paused with Jughead's hat in her fingers. In a moment of, well, Betty didn't know what, she chucked it as hard as she could into the forest. Betty knew it was stupid to be angry of the dead, but she sort of still felt like she was right now. Or she didn't want the reminder. Or she shouldn't hang onto it. She didn't know, but she felt a little lighter when she got rid of it.

Sweet Pea was motioning to the passenger door, "C'mon, you're not in a state to drive." Betty did not disagree. She curled up into the seat, staring forward blankly. Sweet Pea looked back.

"I saw some pallets of water in a car. I'm going to go grab them," When Betty didn't respond at all, he blew air out through his nose, "Okay, yep. Good. You stay there?"

Betty hardly registered his return, or when he started driving for that matter. She didn't register anything at all, since her mind was currently disassociating to a world where Jughead wasn't eaten by walkers and they were still students and life was grand. She was so out of it that it was hours before she came back, and the thing that did bring her back was Sweet Pea nearly crashing their car. Once he swerved to avoid a deer, and paused, Betty unbuckled her seatbelt. The seat belt she didn't remember buckling. Had Sweet Pea done it? Christ, they'd been driving four hours already and it had felt like just a second, just a blink.

"Switch seats," Betty said firmly.

"No, no, if you need to stare out into the road longer, I can-,"

"Apparently not," Betty almost smiled, "Because if I do that, you're going to kill us. No time for luxuries like mourning in the apocalypse, right?"

"Betty, I don't think you're all there yet." Sweet Pea said frankly.

"I am, really." Betty blinked at him once, "Look, Jughead is dead. The more I say it, the sooner I really believe it. Am I sad? Of course, I," She drug her teeth over her lips, "Point being, I'm pretty devastated. I'm going to be not alright for awhile. Still, I can't be like this...forever. It seems impossible, but we all have to do the impossible with the way the world is. I need to get on with my life, I need to be able to focus. I'm sure later I'll cry, like when we stop, but I seriously think it's going to be worse if I just curl up into my own, dark, dark thoughts." She pointed out, "If I'm driving, I can't do that."

"He still could be…" Sweet Pea didn't even finish his sentence, "Fine, if you're sure."

"I am." Betty said, balling up her emotions and shoving them deep, deep down, "So, where the hell are we?"

_June 21th, 2018_

Betty looked between the two signs. She had the car paused, and her eyes flickered at the diverging road ways.

"Left for Arizona," Sweet Pea said absently, attempting to rangle a old-style map back into a neat square, "Earth to Betty?"

"I…" She frowned, shaking her head. They'd been on the road for four more days after she'd made a fool of herself and soaked through Sweet Pea's shirt, three more days after they'd found Jughead's hat. After she made peace that Jughead was gone, really truly gone. It still hurt to think about it, but Betty had time to think as she drove, and she worked through it all to...a form of acceptance. An acceptance that things had changed, if they hadn't changed before, and she couldn't continue on hoping life would just go back to normal one day. Even if the world righted itself, Jughead would still be dead. She also thought alot about it and yeah, Betty wanted to live. That meant navigating a life without Jughead, working toward that, whatever it meant.

Sweet Pea didn't think that Jughead was six feet under, but she just sort of felt it. When Jughead had been nearly killed at the end of the school year, Betty had known he was alive. She'd felt that he could die, and she also knew when he woke up. It was strange, but maybe when you love someone like that, it happens. Sweet Pea pointed out that FP still probably went to Arizona and he might have some other Serpents with him. It had come when Betty was driving, after he narrowly missed that damn deer. And, despite not wanting to talk about Jughead at all- and shutting Sweet Pea down whenever he asked- it was a solid point.

However, since that night, she'd done a lot of thinking.

About Jughead, specifically.

She at first had thought about how she wished she'd gone with him to see Archie at the prison, and how she could have been with him now, or, maybe she could have saved him. Maybe her being there would have been a butterfly effect and he woudn't have gotten bit or the bike wouldn't have been totaled at all. She wished that he was her traveling companion.

But it wasn't that, he wasn't with her. She was with Sweet Pea, and upon more thinking, she wondered what he would have done by himself? She didn't want to think about that, that he might be dead now.

After she forced herself to stop daydreaming scenarios that didn't happen, she forced herself to think about their travels. If they were just chasing a ghost, or if it was worth it to find FP. Toni hadn't even been sure that's where they went. It was a good guess, but so many things could have gone wrong between here and there. They might never make it down to Arizona, all because she was so determined to find someone who, in comparison, hadn't been in her life very long, or at this point, find his father.

If she was finding people based on length and even on importance, her mother and sister should be the top of her list, and then Archie (due to how long they'd been friends) and then Jughead and Co, at forth place, as much as she hated to admit it. She promised herself she was never going to be one of those weepy girls that thought her high school boyfriend was the end of it all, and that being without him wasn't worth living.

She liked to imagine years down the road, after high school and college, they would have gotten married. She had a feeling if this ending hadn't come, they absolutely would have.

But a different chapter had started.

She'd come to a conclusion almost firmly in her mind...she just wondered if Jughead would forgive her? If she could forgive herself?

"Betty?" Sweet Pea asked cautiously, "Whatcha thinking? Where's your head?"

"Maybe we shouldn't." Betty whispered.

"Go to Arizona?" Sweet Pea echoed.

Betty only shook her head.

"Well...it's up to you."

"No," Betty sighed, "Please, make a choice. I feel like it's all on me." She admitted, letting go of the wheel and putting it in park. She figured they'd be here awhile.

"Well, do you want to find Jughead?"

"He's gone, Sweets."

"Fine," Sweet Pea threw out, clearly not wanting to argue this particular subject right now, "Do you still want to find FP?"

"Sorta?" Betty wasn't entirely sure on that either.

"Then, to Arizona," Sweet Pea answered simply.

"But...but what if he isn't even there? What if we get there and he's not there? Do we keep chasing him? Would we even have a place to chase him? The USA is huge, Sweets."

"Well, if Jughead is alive, do you think he's looking for you?"

"I think he would. But, he's always loved Jellybean. So, I wouldn't get angry if he choose to see her first. She's only in middle school. She must be terrified." Betty said, "And as much as I want to know what happened, and as much as I like FP...I don't think I can go there, I'm not sure, but yeah. Not because it would hurt, but okay, we meet up with FP, and then what?"

"Will you sit there looking all sad for the rest of your life if we don't?" Sweet Pea asked and Betty kicked his shin, "Ow! I mean, seriously, though. You're usually so emotional when it comes to him, Jughead, I mean...you did a strip tease at a bar for chistsakes."

"Logic Betty has taken over, Logic Betty saw the signs," Betty nibbled at her nails, "I don't know, Sweet Pea. Is it selfish of me to stop looking after just a month? For FP, my mom, Polly, Archie..?"

"It's impressive, to be honest, we looked that long." Sweet Pea said, "Look, Betty. If we had any concrete lead, you'd be a jerk, yeah. But we don't. We have nothing. They could be in Canada for all we know. We don't. Do you think one day this will all be over?"

Betty gave a slow nod.

"Then, cool, we'll find out then. But, let's be smart. Make it to the day it ends, huh?" Sweet Pea said, "Arizona and further down we go is more populated. North is safer. We can always turn back around if you choose something else. But Betty, I don't mean to sound like an ass-,"

"You usually are," Betty rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I am. Your fam and Archie would want you making smart choices. Buuuuuut, speaking of Jughead…." He drew out his words, "He was just a boy you dated in highschool when you were sixteen. He wasn't you fiancee or husband and you hadn't even been together a year. You don't owe him more than you've already given, not to his father either. You don't have to follow him, or his ghost, what you believe. You're the sort of person that believes in fate and all that bulshitt stuff. What's the phrase? Something like if it's meant to happen, it will? You like fate and soulmates and stuff, don't you? If he's alive, which, he still could be- ah, nope, not a word- then you will find him again."

She looked up, meeting Sweet Pea's warm eyes. She knew that he was only trying to tell her what she was terrified to admit to herself; that while their relationship had the foundations to be lasting, at the point the world ended, it wasn't as life-or-death as she'd always felt it was. It was strikingly average, if she got rid of their sleuthing and just focused on the facts and numbers.

"If we're meant to be, one day, we'll find each other again, if by a slim chance you're right…" She agreed, "But right now…"

Betty took a deep breath, trying to let go of her guilt, and took a right turn.

_July 12th, 2018_

All along the way, at all of their stops, Betty had acquired a green can of spray paint and charted her name all over walls and buildings for FP or her mom or Jughead (at Sweet Pea's utterly annoying insistence), in case anyone ever went looking for them. Jughead's name was so unusual that he would absolutely know if was the Betty he'd known, and so would anyone else that came across it.

_Juggie, I was here, Betty._

This assuage her guilt and helped her move on, mile by mile. Sweet Pea would often add his own name in, in case Cheryl or Toni or Fangs ever picked up their tracks too. Hell, Betty admitted she'd even be thrilled to see Chuck again one day, as he'd more or less proved himself while they were at Lodge Lodge.

Leaving the markes let Betty feel as though she wasn't totally forgetting him, but she was also going to go with the smarter routes, so that one day when this was all done, she would still be alive. On the slim chance Betty's instincts, which were usually razor sharp, were wrong, she knew FP would keep Jughead alive, so would Jellybean. He'd be less likely to do something dangerous if he managed to find his sister, since he often felt responsible for her.

God, she hoped Jughead was still alive, despite the evidence against it.

She was more sure he wasn't than that he was, but Sweet Pea's unwavering belief, a belief that maybe Betty thought she should have, was casting some doubts. Stil, each day she woke up and checked her gut feeling and everyday it was the same. And, she'd whisper to the darkness of the forests that Jughead was dead. One day, maybe, it wouldn't feel like her heart was being shot through. She'd already talked herself into believing that Reggie or Josie was dead, working her way through friends and people she knew, so that when she heard, she wouldn't feel as hurt. And, if miraculously they were alive, she'd be all the glader. That was how she would cope. She did have the thought that she was systematically glueing herself more and more to Sweet Pea with each person she did this exercise with, however, she was also finding less and less reasons to be upset about this. Sweet Pea seemed equally okay with being around her.

After two months since he'd rescued her in Riverdale, they were working well as a team. He still annoyed her, but it made her laugh more than not, and she still just talked and talked when there was silence (but he also didn't seem to hate that), and they were mostly on the same page, so yeah, it worked.

She also began to see Sweet Pea less as a second to Jughead, but as a person himself, and not as a replacement for Jughead's companionship, but as an honest-to-god partner. The most important thing? He was alive and he was pretty determined to keep it that way.

She wondered if one day she would be able to work up to telling herself her family, her sister for example, was dead? Even at this moment, she was about 30% sure she was gone.

When she asked Sweet Pea he licked his finger, holding it to the wind, as though he could magically tell by the way the wind blowed. He dramatically opened his mouth before giving his reading.

"My gut is inconclusive." He finally answered. Betty wondered if he was going it to spare her feelings and his gut was telling him something else entirely. She wondered if his gut was telling him what he was telling her, when it came to Jughead.

Two months ago, Sweet Pea probably wouldn't have lied to her to make her feel better. This was food for thought when the through stumbled across her mind.

_July 14th, 2018_

By month two (and a couple days), writing Jughead's name along with her own felt less like a trail for Jughead, but a trail for anyone and specifically not for Jughead. Especially, when Sweet Pea added his name.

Betty reckoned that there was only one group of kids in the world that had those two names, and certainly when put together, it was unmistakable. It was a beacon for anyone of her old life, may they be lucky enough to stumble across it.

Jughead became a trail marker more than it became a person she missed.

She did miss him, of course, but of late, only in the way she missed Veronica or Archie, at least the majority of the time. She figured she could spend the rest of her life pining over him or she could work on moving on.

Moving forward.

Her and Sweet Pea took things at a rather leisurely pace. They stopped in small towns, avoiding major hubs, and would ransack drug stores and groceries for supplies. Sweet Pea took the reigns on directions, and somewhere around Ohio they found a U-Haul and decided with their ever amassing things it might be best to switch the trucks out.

"They didn't leave the keys in here all handy like the Lodge's did." Sweet Pea said with a scowl after checking everywhere.

"Oh," Betty set down the box she was carting, wiping her forehead. The summer heat was suffocating and heavy, especially in a world where air conditioning didn't exist anymore, "Well, that's not a problem. I can hotwire it."

Sweet Pea squinted at her, "Since when?"

"Since always." Betty clapped her hands to rid the dust from her palms and shoved him into the passenger seat, going underneath the wheel, "I know a lot about cars. Used to work on them back when I was a kid. My dad said I would make a good mechanical engineer one day, since a mechanic wasn't good enough for my abilities. I hadn't thought of it much since high school. Guess now it doesn't matter…" She trailed off, pouting, reminiscing before shaking away her thoughts, "Well, bottom line is, I know cars."

"I knew there was a reason I kept ya around." Sweet Pea watched her, "A girl that knows her way around a car is sorta hot."

Betty sent him a half-glare through the gaps in the wheel, "Oh, and why do I keep you around? What's your special talents."

"Why, handsome looks and biting wit."

"Anything useful?" Betty asked without missing a second and Sweet Pea winced.

"Harsh, Cooper." He thought about it seriously for a second, "I mean, I guess I have a lot of random street smarts shit up here," He said, "You kinda learn it after living alone."

Betty inhaled, feeling bad. She knew that it was obvious a sore topic. He had managed to keep them alive. He also had a good sense of direction, something Betty was useless at. That's why she was the driver and he was the navigator.

"But it doesn't matter. We're sorta stuck together, huh?" He asked. Betty gave a small smile.

"Yeah. I don't see anyone else to trade you out with, so yep."

The car sparked to life, the motor rumbled. As they left the Lodge's van in the parking garage, Betty hardly looked back. This was much more efficient, space wise, and a bigger car could run down walkers easier. They were taking mostly back roads, so luckily they rarely ran into problems. That didn't mean that Betty thought they would never run into problems. She wasn't naive.

Case in point; when they stopped for the night, a walker stumbled upon their campsite where they were cooking a slab of hamburger meat that had managed to stay frozen up until now. Betty managed to dispatch the walker, but not after a minor struggle. She was heaving and catching her breath when Sweet Pea sighed, rubbing his face.

"That was the most awkward and gangly thing I've ever seen," He muttered, "New answer."

"To what?" Betty tried to wipe away the walker blood, recoiling at the smell.

"To your question. I have fighting skills. You have zero. You're going to get yourself killed if you continue on like that." Sweet Pea came across the way, picking Betty's machete out of her belt holder, placing it back in her hands, "We'll make a fighter of of you yet," He said.

So they practiced every night they stopped. Sweet Pea was a patient teacher, but then again, they had all the time in the world. Betty found she enjoyed learning these moves, these techniques. It gave the nights a purpose other than ransaking stores or playing games of I-Spy or card games.

Somewhere leaving Ohio, Betty turned to Sweet Pea.

"So, do we have an actual destination or are we gonna be driving forever?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Wisconsin."

"Seriously?" Betty tried not to wrinkle her nose, but couldn't help it, "What's there?"

"A good place to survive." Sweet Pea mumbled through a pen cap, using a highlighter to map out routes.

"But it's freezing there!"

"Yep," Sweet Pea agreed, "Walkers that are frozen in place can't very well kill us, can they?"

Betty hummed, considering his point. She did have to give him that one.

"Plus, Wisconsin is either farmlands or woods, and not much else. They have like one 'big' city, but otherwise it's all small areas and open space. We'll find a place to stop and stay for...well, maybe forever."

Something tied in her stomach when he said 'forever'. It was the first time either had admitted that maybe this would never end.

"How do you know so much about Wisconsin?" Betty narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Wisconsin was very far away from New York, "Movies?"

It's what Betty knew of the state. She could count on her fingers the facts she knew about it; the capital was Madison, The Green Bay Packers were from there, it had a lot of cheese and dairy, there were lots of cows, and...and...well, that was the extent of it.

"Back before my mom turned really bad, we went and visited a friend of hers out here for a summer. I think her friend was trying to send her to rehab, but clearly, it didn't stick. Anyway, I just remember playing all summer in farmlands and forests with no one around for miles. And land there is farmable. Grocery stores are going to run out or go bad eventually." Sweet Pea seemed to have this all figured out.

"When did you think this through, exactly?" Betty wondered out loud, though she supposed it didn't matter, "And were you going to ask me?"

"I guess if you really protested," Sweet Pea folded the map to the section of land they were driving on, "Do you?"

Betty just gave a shake of her head, since it wasn't the worst plan. It was a plan, and that in itself should be commendable, since Betty's plan could have gotten them both killed.

"And when did I think of it? A kid like me, a street kid, always has a plan of what to do if the world goes to shit. Where we'd escape to. We for sure have to avoid Chicago, so that'll take time, but I figure we're not that far off now. A week, maybe less. Then, once we hit Wisconsin, we keep going straight up. Nearly to Canada. Farther up the less people."

"And then?" Betty prompted him, very intrigued to hear how much he'd thought about this, how complete his thought process was.

Sweet Pea made a motion with his hands, "Find somewhere secluded where the nearest neighbor is miles away. Forest or farm, I guess it doesn't matter. Farms might be better for food purposes, but forests would be better for hiding. Maybe a combination of both areas. We set up. We figure shit out."

"Ah, you say that like it's easy," Betty laughed.

"Well, we've made it this far, huh?" Sweet Pea scratched his head, "You'll be going this way for a long time. Wake me up in about two hours," He said, curling up on the seat, "It will be good, just wait."

They stopped for the night at a little woodsy town, right at the edge. They used to stop and sleep in motels or hotels, but they found a large number or walkers still inhabited such places, and since they got the U-Haul they'd taken to setting up camp in the woods. There were less dangers that wanted to eat their faces there.

Usually.

Betty wasn't on watch but she heard it first. She snapped her eyes open, shaking the leaves off her and looking up at Sweet Pea with wild eyes. He cocked his head, then frowned.

"Get in the car, Betty," He whispered, but the ending of his command was drown out by a herd of walkers stumbling from the trees. Betty grabbed her machete, hands shaking, as she realized they were cutting off her and Sweet Pea's line to safety. There were far too many for them to take out.

And they just kept coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Betty roughly says in French is 'over my dead body' and Sweet Pea basically replies, 'that can be arranged'.
> 
> For those of who who read this on a03, I've added an 'Art of' Story as a sequel, which is baisically where I post moodboards and aesthetics for this story, so check that out! I also think I'm going to post the other universe story for this, the 100 fic, soon...maybe? Ah, we'll see XD
> 
> Also, what are some other Sweet Pea/Betty stories you like to read? I've read the two by 'forasecondtherewe'vewon' (and, if you haven't read those, go and read those!) but I'm looking for some other SweetBetts recs! I'll it on literally anywhere; , a03, tumblr, wattpad...throw them at me!
> 
> I'm thinking of writing another SweetBetts story to post soon too, a AU of S1 where everyone is supernatural (Betty is a witch, Serpents are werewolves, and ect) and I'm either going to write it as Jeronia or as asexual!Jughead. What would you guys rather see? Do you even want to see this? Lemme know.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to say (I'm not sure if I have) that if you review 10 chapters of my stories, you get a drabble written by me, so you can ask for more SweetBetts, or any couple you want! So, start reviewing? :)
> 
> Please oh please make my day, leave a review.


	6. Track Five: The Apocalyptic Song

 

_July 14th, 2018_

"Run!" Sweet Pea yelled, smacking Betty's arm as he passed, doing away with whispering now that they were here. Betty didn't need to be told twice.

Together, the pair flashed through the forest, jumping over rocks and trees and always keeping their weapons forward, clenched.

A walker came out of nowhere, it's gaunt face and sunken eyes reflecting in the light of the moon. Betty skidded to the left, stumbling down a ravine and into a creek, falling hard face-first. Her machete slipped out of her fingers, washed away by the current.

Betty's head throbbed. She spat out rocks, gravel, and blood, running her tongue over her teeth to make sure none had been knocked out. As she raised her face from the water, sputtering out through her nose, she attempted to blink away the droplets that got into her eyes.

She pulled a face, moaning. She wiped at her eyes, but they stung and her head was still really reeling. In a haze, she muggily wondered if she had a concussion. She touched her hairline, running her fingers cautiously down, until she felt something sticky and warm.

It wasn't water in her eyes, but blood. She felt along where her head had been gashed open, trying to wipe away gritty sand and mud. It wasn't a huge cut, but she knew head wounds bleed like nothing else, and it was still nothing good.

At least, she thought, no walkers had followed her yet.

She shot up straight. Walkers, Sweet Pea, running. Her thoughts were all jumbled and she was down the weapon she was most comfortable with.

A scream echoed throughout the forest, sending birds flapping away. Then, she heard gunshots.

"Sweet Pea," Betty whispered, shoving herself up the slippery river banks, grasping sharp rocks and shoving herself forward.

She thrashed through the undergrowth, limbs flailing as her feet carried her toward where the sound had come from. Her fingers were shaking so hard they were almost vibrating as she fished out her secondary knife from her boot, trying to vanish away the fuzzy black on the edge of her vision.

Sweet Pea was on the ground, aiming at walkers that continued to advance upon him. Betty was about to scream for him to get up off the fucking ground and move, for god's sake, until she saw what had caused him to yell out.

A bear trap, tightly sealed around his leg.

"Betty, get out of here, there's too many," Sweet Pea said, "I won't be able to get this off."

"What?" Betty shook her head, "No, no way." She said.

Sweet Pea looked up, seeing her face, "Betty, you're bleeding. Please, just leave me. We can't win." He sounded defeated, but also utterly terrified. She'd never heard him sound like that. He sounded like a highschooler, like a child.

"You're still shooting, so you still believe there's a chance," Betty argued back, sinking the hilt of her knife into a walker, kicking it away.

"Cooper! You'll get yourself killed. Kill me now, okay?"

"No serpents left behind." Betty reminded him, spinning around to shove away to more. She wasn't even going to address his last comment, "Right?"

"Betty, I swear to god-,"

"No! You don't get to tell me to just leave you. If you go down, we both do. I'm not leaving. Got it?" She spat out, "Now, keep aiming and shooting."

It did seem impossible. In the depths of Betty's heart, she realized this could be the end. If she ran away now, yes, she probably could survive. She could move on. Keep going.

That simply wasn't an option for her, however. She could never live with herself if she left Sweet Pea to die.

She saw Sweet Pea glare hard at her, but continue to fend them off. Betty noticed him, in between, trying to work the trap out of the soil. If he couldn't get it off now, maybe they could take it with them?

Betty reached in her back pocket, clenching a lighter tightly in her fists. She'd taken to never going anywhere without one, since fire was of utmost importance in a lot of ways now. She recalled Sweet Pea saying that walkers weren't killed by just flames, however, it might buy them time.

As soon as she saw Sweet Pea get the device out of the ground, she lit up the dry grass around them.

"Stand, c'mon, c'mon," Betty said, throwing his arms over her shoulder and helping him up, "I know it hurts, Sweets, but we have to go."

"You're just like fucking Jughead…" Sweet Pea's speech was beginning to sound slurred, "Always gotta be a hero."

Betty navigated them through a thorn patch, sucking in through her teeth as the thorns riddled her skin, leaving blood trailing behind them. She saw a couple walkers that had gotten past the fire becoming tangled in the brush, just as she'd hoped.

By the time they broke into the town's edge, Sweet Pea was more or less dragging himself. He was still conscious, but barely.

Betty helped him through the streets, leaning over and taking out one of his guns from his pockets and shooting the two walkers that stood in the way between her and the destination; a medical center. She was glad Sweet Pea insisted on canvassing a town before they stopped off for the night.

"Vodka...pour it on the ground, light it up…" Sweet Pea mumbled faintly, his shaking fingers handing her a flask that he kept on him. Betty didn't question, but did as he asked. She took a shot for herself for good measure before hand, though, to calm her nerves. She noticed that two walkers off to the side that had heard the shots were now going toward the new fire instead of them.

"Sweets?" Betty whispered, watching his head slump, "Oh, no. You're not going to fucking die on me. C'mon, just work with me a little farther," She said, lightly slapping his cheeks. When that didn't work, Betty took a breathe in and slapped his face as hard as he could. He blinked awake, though there was a glaze over his eyes. She couldn't imagine the immense pain he was in right now.

Once inside, Betty barricaded the doors, and helped Sweet Pea onto a hospital bed. It was a small care center, so Betty was able to do a sweep of it in less than ten minutes, pleased to see there was only one walker to knife down.

She returned to Sweet Pea, and saw that he'd taken his jacket off. She'd hadn't seen him without it on since the start of the apocalypse, even in the sweltering heat of this summer.

"I'm so warm…Betty?" Sweet Pea questioned.

"Okay, okay." Betty sucked in hard. She'd helped her mom clean up a guy from their ground. She'd watched murders happen. She could certainly manage Sweet Pea's leg, although it was more or less just a grotesque mess of muscle and sinews right now. The device was rusted, which told Betty it had likely been put out before or very close to the beginning of the apocalypse, but had never been retrieved. She was surprised a walker hadn't stumbled into it already.

However, it wasn't the time to count her very unlucky stars. She first hooked Sweet Pea up to a IV bag of painkillers.

"You ever done this before?" Sweet Pea asked as she readied a needle.

"No. But I've given blood loads of times and I always watch." Betty replied, "Plus, we don't have many other choices." She said, "And I broke my leg when I was fourteen, this is what they gave me, and I'm giving you how much they gave me, to be safe. We'll see." She said uneasily. She didn't completely trust herself, but as she reminded herself, there wasn't another option here.

"Do you by chance know how to open a bear trap?" Betty asked, leaning in close to Sweet Pea. He looked up, his fingers trailing over her cheek.

"You're head is bleeding," He said, frowning, "You should take care of that first."  
"I'm the one standing here talking, you might lose a leg," Betty swallowed hard, "Sweet Pea, focus. God, I wish internet was still a thing."

"You think there's a wiki-how on getting a bear trap of a leg?" Sweet Pea asked, which told Betty he wasn't too far gone, he was with it enough to make jokes.

"Sweet Pea," Betty grabbed his cheeks in her hands, "I can't help you if you don't help me."

"You'll need a c-clamp to open it. You're not strong enough by yourself. It's meant to hold bears." He said. Betty nodded, running away and tearing through the storage cabinet. She managed to find one, and together they managed to pry it off. Betty threw it on the ground, kicking it far away.

Sweet Pea flopped on the pillow, "Thank god, the meds are kicking in…" He gave a low moan of pleasure, "How's it look, Doc?"

"I'm not a doctor," Betty was quick to remind him, "Ahh, well, bad."

Sweet Pea raised his head, looking at his leg, "Yuck." He looked a little green. Seeing your leg torn open would do that to someone. She ran a finger along his leg, where there was still flesh.

"I think it's broken."

"Lucky me," Sweet Pea sighed. He was pretty silent as she worked her best to fix his leg. It was deep enough and wide enough that she was sure it wouldn't close on it's own.

She wasn't able to find thread for sutures, but she did find a fancy and medical grade looking staple gun.

Sweet Pea's face paled when he saw it, but he gave a firm nod, "Do what you gotta do, Cooper." He agreed to it when Betty held it up with in question. She found a wooden stick of some sort and gave it to him to bite on. She found some numbing gel, but doubted it would do much. She slathered it on for good measure anyway.

The first staple, he cried out around the stick, forehead sweating. The second one, he reached for Betty's free hand, gripping it. Betty felt like he was breaking her fingers when she put the third one in. By the fourth, he'd passed out.

She washed up the leg after, wrapping it in fluffy gauze and letting him stay out.

She did her own medicinal routine in his room, in a grimy mirror. She saw that her hair was crispy and stained a dark brown from Betty running her bloody hands over her blonde hair. She rinsed out the wound, wincing and jumping in her seat as she did. She refused to take any medication, since one of them had to be alert. It wasn't going to be Sweet Pea right now.

It wasn't as bad as his, or in need of stitches at all. She found some of the sticky tape things to close it together, and then applied a lot of antiseptic creams, numbing gel, and other topical things over it, before patting a gauze bandage on, and then taped around the edges for good measure. Her cheeks and lips and other bare skin was cut everywhere from the forest, but it wasn't anything that needed attending to.

Sweet Pea was torn up from the forest too, but he must have hit his face when he fell. Betty had hit her forehead, but Sweet Pea must have landed on his nose, because it was a little crooked and caky blood was dried all down his chin. His lip was also split open. To be honest, there was just blood everywhere on him.

Betty's clothes were full of both of their blood, so she trashed it and found a pair of scrubs around, which would keep her clothed until they could return to the U-Haul.

"Betty," Sweet Pea's cracked voice startled her. She turned to see him looking down his newly bandaged and splinted leg.

"Hey, Sweet Pea." She was at his side instantly.

"You didn't leave me…" He frowned, staring hard at her.

"No, of course I didn't," Betty felt offended he would have thought she was going to, "I wouldn't."

Sweet Pea nodded, rubbing his forehead and swallowing hard. He didn't look like he was in pain, and his grimace was more due to the situation, as compared to actual feelings. Betty pulled up a chair, resting her chin on the mattress. God, she was exhausted. She felt Sweet Pea's fingers lifting her chin to look at her face, and his long sigh.

"You should just say thank you," Betty mumbled, trying to fight off sleep. Her eyes drooped. She was half-joking, but half-serious.

"Thank you." His voice was quiet and still sounded surprised.

"I'm here to stay. I told you, I'm not leaving you." Betty wondered, if someone were to psychoanalyze it, Sweet Pea had a fear of abandonment. His father, his mother, all the Serpents...It sorta made her feel utterly sad, especially because Sweet Pea was the type of person that deserved someone caring about him. She did. Obviously, because one didn't do all that to people they hated or only knew by acquaintance.

"I'm not used to people looking out for me, risking their lives. People die around me, but now," He paused, as though struggling to find the proper words, "first Jughead walked into death for the serpents and you risked your life for me now." He sounded amazed, "I'm not...worth that."

Betty rolled her cheek near him, ready to lay into him, because that was just the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, "Sweet Pea-,"

"Jordan."

"Hmm?" Betty frowned, opening one eye, "No, it's Betty." Oh crap, was he hallucinating now? Crazy? Did he have amnesia? Betty was unprepared for any of those outcomes.

"No, no…" He did crack a smile, but it was replaced by a vulnerability she hadn't yet seen on his face, "It's, uh, my real name. Jordan Connor Peabody."

"Peabody?" Betty shot up, "As in-,"

"Yeah." Sweet Pea grimaced, "Second cousins. You can get why I want to distance myself."

"Jordan," Betty rolled the name over her tongue. She watched his eyes flicker with, well something, when she said his name, but she couldn't place it. She probably could have if she wasn't dizzy with pain, since she knew she'd seen that look on Jughead before, "Why now?"

"Jughead did that for the serpents as a whole. You came back for  _me_. No one's ever been so…"

"Loyal? Stupid?" She supplied, smiling gently, slipping her fingers back into his, squeezing it.

"Yeah, something like that," He agreed.

"Sweets, you've saved me as many times as I've saved you." She reminded him, "And you totally deserve people looking out for you. We have each other's backs now, don't we?"

"Yeah, 'course." Sweet Pea mumbled. He looked at their intertwined fingers, but didn't slip his away. In fact, if anything, he held on tighter.

"What name do you prefer?" Betty asked after a moment.

Sweet Pea grinned, "Whatever you want to call me, Cooper."

_July 17th, 2018_

She ended up continuing to call him Sweet Pea or just Sweets, but that's not to say that she wasn't always thinking his true name. It rattled around in her brain, and she found herself directly after narrating his actions in her head, trying out that name, like it was a shiny new toy.

_Jordan's been sleeping a lot._

_Jordan is trying to wash the blood out of his jacket._

_Jordan is craving twinkies; but aren't we all? Broke open the vending machine...who knows how good it is...am I willing to risk it?_

It gave her a little thrill to use it, knowing that she was one of the few people in the world that knew his true identity. Sweet Pea informed her even Jughead never got that far, and Fangs probably would have soon, but things had just happened.

He didn't make a deal out of it, so neither did Betty.

They spent three days in the clinic. Betty scoured it for useful medical grade supplies they hadn't found in abandoned CVS stores or Walgreens on their way through the states. She also found a couple medical textbooks.

While she was under no illusion that this would be a comprehensive accumulation of any medical problem she'd need to know, the truth of it was that she had no knowledge, so anything would be better than nothing. The mantel lay on Betty, since Sweets spent most of his time sleeping off his pain and recuperating. Betty managed to get the old coffee machine working in the breakroom and went to work, trying to commit each page to memory. She would be taking the most useful with her, but reading at least gave her something to do, in between worrying over Sweet Pea. It also took her mind off it all; this was the first long 'down town' they'd had since the Lodge Lodge. There was much to think about, too many thoughts, if she were to let her mind freely wander. To struggle through complicated medical text books where she had to look up a definition every twelve words was much preferred, because it forced her to use all of her mind power.

The clinic was unbearably hot. She had taken off her scrubs top and was just in a tank, using a small flicking light to guide her vision on the pages, and she was about six coffee cups in. She found coffee helped her headache, since she refused to take anything stronger than Advil.

She rolled her shoulder, wincing. Absently, she massaged the muscle with a half-hearted touch.

"Is your shoulder good?" Sweet Pea's voice startled her. She looked up to see him sitting up on the bed.

"Ah, pretty fine. I just think I yanked it weird when I was fighting," She said. She was confident it wasn't broken or popped out of place, but that didn't mean it didn't throb and whine whenever she moved it to suddenly. In comparison to Sweet Pea's leg, it wasn't worth complaining over. Sweet Pea yawned, so Betty went back to reading, as not to bother him if he were to fall back asleep.

She heard the bed shift and before she could tell him to get back into bed, he'd grabbed the back of her office chair and had wheeled her to the side of his bed.

"Hop on," He said, patting the space between his legs, "Let me rub it."

"There's no need," Betty started scooting her chair back with her feet, until Sweet Pea leaned over and began working his calloused hands over the skin. A moan escaped her lips, catching her off guard. She bit her lip, before clambering onto the bed, her back against his chest.

He leaned her forward, carefully tucking her hair in front of her, before he began massaging the whole area, but more or less concentrated around the shoulder. His fingers were surprisingly gentle and the whole experience just melted Betty like butter.

"Where in god's name did you learn this?" Betty asked, trying to speak normally. Her voice was almost sinful the first time she'd attempted to talk.

"Toni likes backrubs. She was adamant I was going to learn how to give a good one." Sweet Pea replied, his own voice very casual. The fact that this was warming Betty so much while Sweet Pea seemed unaffected made her blush. She was glad her face was away from his.

"You need to rest. No sense of both of us tiring out and dying in a clinic. That would be irony."

Sweet Pea informed her.

"Both of us?" Betty turned her head just to peek over her shoulder, "You're not dying, Sweets."

"Well, if you die, I probably will too," Sweet Pea's thumbs lavished over her skin, "So, don't. I'm sorta helpless right now." He said.

"Yeah. Not planning on it."

"Then, if that's the case, you need to rest a bit. Seriously."

Betty really wanted to protest, but her head lolled against his chest, and she's asleep before the words even make it out.

When she awakens, she's laying on her side on the hospital bed. She frantically spins around, searching for the patient; although logically, how far can a half-cripple really get? Her heart is racing, still, but when she catches sight of him it still hasn't quieted.

She breathes softly for just a second. Sweet Pea has taken her office chair and is engrossed in one of the medical textbooks. He has a piece of licorice in his mouth, hanging out- almost like a cigarette- and his thumb rubs over his chin.

"You know, you don't have to read that," Betty whispers, breaking the silence in the hopes that her body calms down. It still hasn't, "You could be doing other things with your time. I'm reading through them all."

"Well, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense that the medical knowledge should just be in one person. Besides, I don't dislike reading, I just didn't have time." He admits, his fingers tapping the pages, "But, uh, do you get even like half of this?" The embarrassment is clear on his face.

Betty winces, "Not really." There's a lot of big words and phrases that, if she'd gone to medical school, she's sure she'd know more.

Sweet Pea clicks his tongue; "We should try to hit up a Barnes and Noble or something then. Get a 'Medical Knowledge for Dummies' book. Hell, we should take all of the 'for Dummies' books, cuz we both have to be everything all at once." He is still trying to read the textbook, "You think it might be okay for me to have coffee, Doc?" He's half-grinning at her, knowing full well her knowledge of medical things is only slightly elevated to hers, and that's mostly because she's spent two and a half days on this book, while he's spent maybe two hours.

Betty gives a half-shrug and that's good enough for Sweet Pea. He lets the book 'thump' softly on the tiled floor, grabbing the crutches Betty put next to his bed, and hobbles away.

If he's this active, they should leave soon, Betty thinks. No use in staying in this place when there's still so much longer to go. Plus, a hospital is too big to manage- even a clinic. If a herd ever got in...she sighs hard.

When Sweet Pea returns and sees Betty gathering things into piles, he understands. He downs the coffee in a single chug and starts getting things from other rooms, readying their leaving.

Betty slips out silently while he's gone, scribbling a note on a post it.

She might have made it to her destination, if something in the front of the clinic didn't stop her.

Betty is engrossed in a body of a dead walker when Sweet Pea stumbles out of the clinic, eyes wild.

"What the hell, Cooper? Do you really think you can just-woah." Betty glances up. He might think she's stopped because there's a child laying on the ground, hardly more than eight, dead and mostly nude. It's sad, Betty agrees, but that's not what caused concern. It's that this kid's skin is flawless.

Far too flawless to have been turned into a walker.

"What are you doing?" Sweet Pea stands above Betty, frowning as Betty begins to look over the body. His anger, at the moment, has vanished.

Betty does not answer. She meticulously combs through the entire, tiny and frail body fo the girl before she answers, placing her hands in the hollows of her eyes.

"Sweets," She asks, voice quivering, "Can you recall ever seeing a dead person laying on the ground? Someone that's just dead, not also a walker?"

Sweet Pea's eyebrows knit. He frowns, opening his mouth, but then snaps it closed again. Betty can tell he's coming to the same conclusion she is; they haven't seen that.

"It's not like I was looking closely at dead bodies past Riverdale," Sweet Pea finally says, but it sounds like a weak excuse.

Betty sets the girl back on the ground, closing the child's eyes with two fingers. There's a sound to the left; Sweet Pea's head swivels left and then right, before he grabs Betty's arm and hauls her back inside.

Once safely to the doors, and out of sight of the glass, Sweet Pea lets go of her arm. It's a little sore, from being manhandled up the stairs.

He's fuming, but as he paces, Betty can almost see him trying to decide which topic to tackle first.

"We have two things to talk about," He manages to snap. If Betty has grown to know Sweet Pea at all during this time, he'll go with the note she left first. He's hot-headed, easy to anger, and the sort of person that likes confrontations. She's preparing herself for it, going through the answer she'll give him in her head.

"What do you think your question means?" He asks.

"Well, I just thought that while you-," Betty launches into her reasoning for leaving him before she's really registered what he said. When she does, she's very surprised. His tone was level and his face was worried. He'd gone with the other question first.

The one about the girl.

Betty takes a moment to reorient herself, biting her lip.

"There was no bite mark anywhere. I'm not a doctor, we've established this, but do you know how I think she died? Starvation. If that's true, and if we've never just seen a dead and non-walker body lying about, you know what that means?" She asked quietly.

"I don't want to," Sweet Pea's shoulders slump. She thinks he must have came realization that she did.

"You die and come back as a walker, no matter how you died. You don't need to get bit, but getting bit for sure kills you." Betty spoke it outloud, just so that she was sure Sweet Pea was on the same page as her. From the way his whole body flinched, he was.

"Guess it's a long time coming," Sweet Pea rubbed his arms, trying to pat down the goosebumps, "Maybe it was a disease or some lab made shit. I mean, there have been people trying to prepare for the next black plague forever. Who's to say it's not this?"

The question hung between them. Betty only could swallow.

"Or, the next 'comet'." He pointed out, "Because, let's be honest, I'm seriously concerned about this being the end of the human race as we know it."

"We're fucked." Betty whispered.

Sweet Pea looked uncomfortable. She thought he'd be the first to agree, however, her despair made him look unsure.

"Well, we sure as hell are if you just do whatever you damn please." He threw something at her, the tone of his voice shifting immediately. She picked up a tiny, fluorescent, balled note from the ground.

Ah. They were coming to this fight.

She re-reads her note she'd left for him;  _getting the car. Stay here. I'll be back soon._

"I wasn't doing 'wahtever I dam pleased'," Betty locked her jaw, "I was making the logical decision."

"What part of the idea that we don't leave each other do you not get?" Sweet Pea demanded, "If you were ever going to leave me behind, back in the woods would have been-,"

"I was getting the van!" Betty had no qualms pushing back against his anger, "It's not that far away! We didn't get very far from the forest with that leg of yours! Plus, it makes sense. You get the shit. I get the car. You hop in, we're gone."

"But what if you never came back?" Sweet Pea asked.

"I wasn't just going to drive off into the sunset and leave you, Sweets, god!"

"What if it wasn't your choice?" Sweet Pea's voice broke a little, "What if you got killed and I was waiting for you back here?"

Betty lifted her shirt, "I'm well stocked." She said, showing her replacement knife and the gun, both tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

"You both know there's a thousand things that could go wrong." Sweet Pea said in a dark tone. Betty crossed her arms.

"So, what, we're both going to hobble all the way to the car, come back- leave this stuff unattended- and then take all this extra time, when I could be back within like ten minutes?" She asked.

"If that's what sticking together means, yeah."

Betty was so infuriated with his complete lack of logic that she had to hold in tears. She wasn't sure why this of all things was getting to her. Maybe it was because he was so afraid of her dying without him. Maybe it was the look on his face. Maybe it was her own guilt for leaving Jughead and not continuing to look for him, even if he was dead. The guilt for not looking for him before, when the world ended at the start.

"Betty?" Sweet Pea asked.

"Gosh," She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to keep her eyes dry, "Fine. Okay. Together." She opened one eye, trying to shake away her emotions, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you liked me, the way you're obsessed with me."

It was a joke, but a look flashed across Sweet Pea's face, but it was gone within a moment. It was so fast that Betty convinced herself later she merely imagined it, "Naw, Cooper, I just like to annoy you. That's all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIVERDALE COMES BACK TOMORROW? What are y'all most excited for? For me, to see my baby Sweet Pea :)
> 
> Someone on tumblr also thought last chapter was the end! I'm happy to tell you that I have plans for this fic to be at least 20ish chapters, so we're not quite done yet ;)
> 
> So, when I was writing this originally, I didn't know much about the actor of Sweet Pea. Then I started following him on Insta, and I wanted to give him a totally different name, but apart from Sweet Pea, the only thing I can imagine him is as Jordan. So, he's Jordan here too. As for his lastname, it's never been said, but there was a theory going around awhile with people thinking he was the son of Penny and FP. It's interesting, but it's not what I'm using, but I did like the Penny PEAbody/Sweet PEA connection, so I sorta used it here.
> 
> In the meantime, I've also begun another Riverdale fic! If you like this one, I highly encourage you to go check it out. It's called 'Blood of My Blood, Flesh of My Flesh' and is a supernatural!AU that features Betty as a witch, Veronica as a vampire, and the Serpent Gang as a werewolf pack. It starts in season 1 and is a redo of the whole series if these paranormal elements were in it. It's Sweet Pea and Betty Cooper centric, so I imagine you guys would like it. It will go through, at least, all the canon ships on the show (so, if you're a bughead fan, it will have that) but I'm not actually sure what my endgame couples will be yet XD Sweet Pea and Betty meet early on, and I have to keep dialing them back so it's not too couply on their end! At most, they for sure will get together sometime during the fic. I would love to see some of you from here over on that fic too! It only has the preface, but I should be updating a new chapter for it tonight as well.
> 
> Enjoy ;)


	7. Track Six: Radioactive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than usual, but the interest for this story seems to have really picked up in between my last updates! I'm pleased to see everyone else is starting to love this story as much as I so love writing it :) Plus, we all need more Sweet Pea specifically in our lives...
> 
> Song is Radioactive by Imagine Dragons!

_July 17th, 2018_

They drove out of that town pretty damn fast. Sweet Pea took up his usual passenger seat, though he treated it like it was a throne from the way he splayed so casually on it. It was almost sinful. He was turning the paper map around, the sound of the crinkling paper giving Betty some much needed white noise in the back of her head.

"I'm not an invalid." They hadn't spoken except for Sweet Pea to say 'left' or 'right' in a toneless drone. She couldn't tell he was still upset.

"Huh? No, of course not." She murmured, frowning.

"Coulda fooled me, the way you were just going to leave me there." He was just hardly holding in his rage. Betty could see it smoldering under the surface.

"I've been over this-,"

"I did just fine on my own with more shit to deal with, you think a leg is going to stop me?" He asked, heaving a bit, out of breath although he was sitting and immobile. It clued Betty in how furious he was with her. While Betty would usually blister at his tone, now, she just felt guilty.

"Sweets, I don't think I needed to say it, but I'd be dead without you." Betty knew that she'd made a mistake. Even if she thought it was one that was logical, she understood now that it was wrong of her.

"You coulda been dead again if you left too," Sweet Pea hissed, "Fucking christ, Betts."

"And you would have survived alone again," She said with certainty, but the idea seemed to almost disgust Sweet Pea.

"But I-," He sharply closed his mouth, shaking his head, "Whatever. Can we just agree that this isn't going to happen again? Not without, I dunno, a freaking emergency?"

"Leave each other?" Betty asked.

"Yeah. Leave."

In that one word, she realized the depths of the issue. Mother issues, daddy issues...all the issues everywhere. It was a can of worms she still wasn't quite ready to deal with, so she just nodded.

"I won't."

Something in her voice must have been sincere, because Sweet Pea relaxed, finally allowing the topic to drop. Betty nearly breathed a sigh of relief. It made her on edge to fight with Sweet Pea, at least, about real things. Fighting with him over which flavor of Doritos was better (Cool Ranch, obviously, there was no contest) was almost like, well, flirting. It wouldn't matter tomorrow. It was a way to destress and just argue.

She glanced at the steering wheel making a disgusted noise when she saw the ragged state of her nails; the color nearly all chipped off except two or three places, most of them uneven, and one of them newly sore. She ran her finger of the place where it was jagged, deep in thought. It must have happened in the last couple hours, but Betty only just noticed.

"What?" Sweet Pea snorted, "Break a nail while loading the boxes?"

"Yeah, actually." She realized how silly it sounded, how very trivial to be caring about the state of her nails at the end of the world. She realizes she should have just left it off, or lied to Sweet Pea, before she give him ammunition to tease her with. But, there's not much else to do here- they exhausted the game of I Spy a long time ago- so she just keeps talking. She always hopes the more she talks, the more it encourages him to talk. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

"I mean, it's not the nails I'm sad about." She begins again, taking one hand off the wheel to show Sweet Pea, "It's well, I'd really never had my nails done professionally before. Then Veronica showed up and she took one look at them the first day we were friends and said 'This needs major work' and called a nail person up to her room that same day. And since then, since I've been her friend- was- I'd get my nails done with her every week. It made me feel a little human, it made me feel like even something as insignificant as my nails were a part of me that I deserved to take care of. That I should take care of myself. I think Veronica knew, though."

"Knew what?" Sweet Pea frowned, realizing her tone had taken a more somber note.

"It wasn't about my nails, not really. She used to insist every week, and sometimes I'd wriggle my way out of it. It was easier to…" She couldn't form the words, she couldn't admit it out loud, "To do that." She held her palm fully up, trying to gauge his reaction, "I haven't done it since the start of this. Who would knew a walker apocalypse would make me less anxious than real life?"

She should have expected Sweet Pea reaching out for her hand, but his touch surprised her all the same. Maybe what was so surprising was the absolute reverence in which he touched her hand, as though she'd offered him the chalice of immortality. She got away with not looking at him by reminding herself she had to watch the road, she was still driving.

The pads of his thumbs laved over the row of crescent-shaped scars, tracing them carefully.

"She was a good friend like that," Betty couldn't help but get choked up. She hadn't ever admitted out loud what Veronica had done for her. If Veronica had asked her outright, or asked if maybe Betty would have wanted to see a therapist, Betty may have denied it or gotten defensive. Although, after her dad, seeing a therapist had been one of the first things Betty had considered...that was useless now, huh, since there probably weren't many of those around anymore.

Anyway, it had been a small gesture that Betty wished she'd thanked Veronica for, truly. Not just thanked her for bringing in Tecia every week to buff her nails and let her pick a pretty top coat, but for being Veronica and finding another way around the problem.

She let out a half-sob, sucking it back, "God, I just really miss her. Before Veronica, I never really had good friends, well...friends that were girls." She admitted, thinking of Archie and Kevin. Heck, even technically Jughead, although until she'd started dating him, he was more of Archie's friend than hers.

"I miss my friends too," Sweet Pea still hadn't let go of her hand. He looked down, realizing he'd held onto far longer than either of them had thought it would go on, and dropped it. He put his own hands in his lap, like for a second he didn't know what to do with them.

"Tell me about them," Betty asked, using the hand he let go of to wipe her cheeks, finding stability to her tone once again, "Your friends. Serpents. Because, well...I don't know a ton about the ones your age." She was a bit ashamed to admit that, however, it was true. She had always assumed once she was more 'one of them' it would happen.

"Like what?"

"Like…" Betty had a thousand questions, "Do you get a nickname when you all join? Does everyone have one?" She asked, "I mean, between you...Jughead, Toni, Fangs, FP, Tallboy...they're all nicknames." She pointed out.

Sweet Pea gave a short bark of laughter, "Ah, no. Most of us come prepackaged with a totally awesome and marketable nickname."

Betty couldn't help but chuckle, "You have to admit, a lot of you have them."

"We're the kind of people that would." He said in a more serious voice, "Think about it. A nickname is like a...a second layer of protection. Like our jackets. For me, you don't know my real name until I want you to. Others are like that."

"How did you get your nickname, then, if it's not given to you in some weird cultish ritual? Or, is that a level I haven't unlocked?" She asked. Sweet Pea didn't answer and she feared she'd hit a button or two she wasn't supposed to. When she looked up, however, Sweet Pea was bright red.

"No, I mean, if you know my real name-,"

"Jordan," Betty said it again, like Sweet Pea wouldn't have recalled telling her. If possible, his face got redder.

"Yeah, right, that one, you can know. It's just…" He winced, "When I was really tiny, before mom went crazy and stuff, my grandpa would come around- my dad's dad- and he would watch me. He called me Sweet  _Pea_  firstly 'cuz of my last name, but from the stories, I was apparently just this cute little kid that always helped him around and I had 'the cutest and roudest face out there'...that's what my grandpa said. He died not long before my mom, so," Sweet Pea threw up his hands, "It stuck. Whatever. I'm not really cute anymore, but I liked my grandpa."

"Aww!" Betty cooed, which just made Sweet Pea look more uncomfortable as he hid behind a hand, "Well, I still think you're cute." She said, without really meaning to at all. As soon as the words left her mouth, she coughed. If she'd said it with a smirk, she could have played it off as just being a nice friend, or something, but it was the way she'd said it that made her feel really stupid. It was that she'd said it as someone that saw 'cute' as a synonym for 'good looking'. Sweet Pea looked up, his face turning a normal shade again.

"Cute? That all? Not handsome? Sexy? Undeniable?" He said, leaning over the median.

"Gettout." Betty shoved him back, "I give you a compliment, you take a mile," She rolled her eyes, "What about Fangs? He's like the nicest guy I've ever met."

"True." Sweet Pea bobbed his head, "When we were like freshman, he'd just joined up and also wanted a badass nickname. Someone deadpanned suggested Fangs- and lemme tell you, if you think he's nice now, you should have seen him two years ago- and Fangs just took to it. Toni tried to convince him out of it for weeks. Then, it was sort of a joke. The Horrifying Fangs who volunteered at the animal shelter nursing bunnies or who walks old ladies to their cars in winter."

Betty let Sweet pea talk about Fangs for a second. Fangs who was nearly killed over something stupid. Not that cheating was stupid, but that the whole situation of their town was stupid and someone shouldn't have shot a seventeen for that anyway.

"Fangs was always too soft for this world," Sweet Pea crunched his body between the dashboard and the seat, curling into himself. He said his words like it was a eulogy. Betty didn't say anything, but to Sweets, it was one. It was admitting out loud that Fangs was most likely dead and probably had been this whole time.

"Who else?" Betty asked after a moment, "Who are the other Serpents that are our age?"

She half expected Sweet Pea to have walled himself up, however, Sweet Pea blinked at her.

"Well," He said, "I guess I'll start with Lann…"

That's how they spent the whole rest of that day driving. It was the most Betty had ever heard Sweet Pea talk. Talk about things that mattered, anyway, since Sweet Pea usually blabbered just to bug the hell out of Betty. He was genuine and excited to talk about his chosen family, Betty realized.

She had also expected that Sweet Pea would give a one sentence summary about each person, but no. He was giving Betty full biographies on the fellow 'baby Serpents' as Betty thought they were, in her own mind.

There were, in total, about twelve young serpents, discounting Jughead, Toni, Sweets, and Fangs. Four of them girls, which surprised Betty. Sweet Pea pointed out later on in the day that the children of Serpents were always welcome, if they wanted to pass the tests, and it wasn't like Serpents only produced boys.

"We do usually give 'em a nickname, even unintentionally. Something always sticks." He said. He admitted by this point, he'd forgotten most of the real names of people. The nicknames replayed in her mind like song lyrics; Darkon, Lann, Boggs, BB, Dip, Lipton, Buzz, Vade, Jedi, Stiff, Kaida, Deni, Ave, Sanders. She was surprised she remembered them all. She was surprised as she recognized who Sweets was talking about from just being around the Serpents, casually.

"What was my moms?" Betty asked after all was said and done and her mind was whirling of names of Serpents that were either confirmed dead or missing. Dead; Boggs, Buzz, Jedi, Deni, Sanders. Sanders had only been fourteen. She was so young. Missing; the rest. She felt a longing for a group of kids she didn't even know, still.

If Sweet Pea could have draped himself to look even more sexy over those seats, he would have, Betty thought (to her own dismay), his face just oozing with mischief. His lips curled and he bit his lip, raising an eyebrow.

"From what I hear, they called your old lady 'Vegas'."

Betty stiffened, "Oh sweet Jesus," She muttered under her breath, shaking her head. If someone had told her a year ago her mother- in her youth- had held a nickname related to the city of sin and bacchanalia, she may have laughed. Now...well, Betty wished she couldn't see it, but she did.

"Uh-huh," Sweet Pea looked feral, a wild glint in his eyes, "And I wondered how the hell a woman like Alice Cooper could get that nickname, when all I knew of her for awhile was you in your prissy little button ups and pastel sweaters until you did your serpent dance." He leaned close, close enough so that his breath was hot on her ear, "What can I say Cooper, you got it from your momma."

Betty tried to repress the shiver that started low in her stomach, but it was inevitable. Sweet Pea looked pleased with himself.

"Me, my nickname," Betty panted out, trying to change the subject, "What's my awesome Serpent nickname?"

"Ah, well," At least Sweet Pea knew when to step back, "I mean, I already call you Cooper," He pointed out.

"My last name? That's no fun. Plus, I don't like my last name. It reminds me of my dad." She'd told Sweet Pea all about her murderous family early on, since it wasn't like it was a secret or anything.

"What was you mom's maiden name?"

"Smith."

"Mhh," Sweet Pea waved a hand, "Boring. Ach, don't worry, I'll figure it out." He said, "Since you're so into it."

A part of Betty wanted to dive back into that very interesting tidbit about how closely he must have been watching her the night he did the snake dance, the other part of her wanted to run far away from it. Her body betrayed her just a bit, and she shifted uncomfortably in the seat. Sweet Pea offered to switch places, but Betty denied it, since she knew her problem wasn't the uncomfortable leather, it was the dampness on her thighs. Luckily, as far as Sweet Pea seemed to notice, he did not.

Damn it all.

_July 22nd, 2018_

There was an unspoken agreement between the pair to get to their location as quick as possible. No more popping through small towns to gather materials. They had enough, Betty assessed the next time they stopped. Plus, the walker incident rattled them both enough to remind them what a dangerous world they were living in now, and why they'd gone out on this trip in the first place. To not live out of a van forever.

So, for the next week or so, there was a pattern. Sweet Pea would sleep during the day, only waking when Betty nudged him awake to give a direction left or right, but otherwise would curl up with a blanket and pillow and just let the daylight flash by.

On the flipside, Betty would sleep at night. They also did away with sleeping on the ground. As of that first night out of Ohio, they had cleared and re-arranged the van's back so that Betty would sleep on the floor of the U-Haul while Sweet Pea would sit next to her, wide awake, ready to quiet her or to wake her for a speedy get-away.

She thought it would be strange, just laying down and falling asleep with Sweet Pea sitting there, but she was so exhausted usually that wasn't a problem. Plus, it's not like he just sat there all night- he'd found a tiny reading light and was going through some novels he'd plucked himself. Tonight, he was about halfway-through 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'.

One of the nights, Betty woke up and felt a shiver down her spine. When she looked up, Sweet Pea was staring at her sleeping form. She wordlessly met his gaze, and he turned pink with the realization he'd been caught.

"I just, ah," Sweet Pea was usually suave with his words, but he flubbed this, before going back to his book, "You just looked really at peace," He finally muttered from the safe cover of the paperback.

"Oh." Betty rolled over, staring at the ceiling, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

She was attracted to him, okay?

It was bound to happen...last man, last woman, well, basically.

She wasn't in love with him, she was just really horny and he was a dude, so yeah. It had been months since she gotten off. She would just take care of it herself, except for the fact that they hadn't been far enough apart for Betty to do it discreetly. She'd thought about it when they were in the clinic, but if he'd woken up and needed something, she'd feel awful and selfish.

So, she attributed the way she was feeling around Sweets of late just to stupid teenage hormones.

She wondered if Sweet Pea was the same. He was a guy, so maybe it was worse. However, he didn't seem as bothered by it as Betty. Wherein his tone toward her was always teasing, Betty imagined he might be horrified to learn that Betty was actually getting riled up by it, after all this time.

Or, maybe he'd just feel proud and it would never end.

Either way, Betty was not going to tell him. As soon as she got a second alone, she'd deal with it, and that would be the firm end of it.

_July 24th, 2018_

Betty whacked Sweet Pea awake as soon as they entered the border of Wisconsin.

"Shouldn't be long now," Sweet Pea yawned, "We might have found a place by nightfall."

The unsaid words crackled between them; they might find a place they would live in either until the end of this walker crisis or possibly forever, depending. It was a thought that made Betty's stomach churn, but at the same time, she was also relieved. She was tired of being on the road. She wanted to settle her bones in a place.

"Once we reach the midpoint, about these towns here," Sweet Pea tapped his finger on the map, "That's when we'll just start searching, I guess. Maybe we should talk about what we're looking for."

"Uh-huh," Betty swallowed thickly.

"Like on House Hunters," Sweet Pea continued. This ripped a snort from Betty's throat, without meaning to.

"You watched HGTV?" She asked.

"Toni did. I sometimes happened to be around." Sweet pea was quick to clarify, "It was always unrealistic, though. You'd get this couple and one would be all like 'Hi, I'm Norman and I play spoons on pieces of cardboard with a band for a living' and 'Hiya, I'm Laken and I make puppet shows for deaf pygmy marmosets' and then they'd have a budget of like a nickel and a plastic plate and want a Malibu beachside house with a hot tub."

"It was not like that," Betty rolled her eyes.

"It was. That's besides the point. We should sorta know which houses we can eliminate right away." He did have a point, Betty conceded. Not about House Hunters, and she loved that show so she took minor offence, but about saying what they were looking for.

"Something far away from people," Sweet Pea started, "A forest house would be good for protection wise, but I think farm would be a better bet, so we can plant shit."

"But it should be newly renovated," Betty cut in, "The world's gunna fall apart from here. I don't want a house that already has one foot in the ground. There has to be modernized houses that happen to exist on farm land, right?"

"Oh, I'm sure." Sweet Pea's fingers tapped the dash, "Something near a well or a river. We'll need water. Maybe something within a half-hour to a town, because, you'll never know when we need to get stuff."

"Couple bedrooms. In case people ever find us." Betty threw out too, "Maybe a farmhouse that has a couple properties on the space."

"Selfishly speaking, I'd love a hot tub." Sweet Pea laughed, "Or a sauna."

"What about finding solar panels? How would we run the hot tub and other stuff?" Betty pointed out. Sweet Pea clicked his tongue.

"What's something just totally non-logical you want Cooper?" Sweet Pea questioned, "Like, imagine that it's not the apocalypse and you're getting your first house and you have a little extra dough. What do you ask for?"

Betty frowned, tonguing the insides of her cheek. Ever since her and Sweet Pea had decided to find a place, she'd only thought of it in the sense of their survival. In fact, little else had been on her mind while they were driving. They weren't living in a world where she got a picket fence and a artisan kitchen or a large writing room with window that let the light in, even in hypothetical situations.

"I don't…" She began, shaking her head.

"C'mon, you have to had thought about it. What about when you thought about what kind of house you'd want before this all happened?"

Betty flinched hard. The only time she'd ever thought of a future house outside her mother's was when she imagined her and Jughead down the line.

"Oh," Sweet Pea said quietly, understanding instantly. She should have been maybe more upset she was so transparent, but on the other, she was grateful she didn't have to spell it out. Sweet Pea looked almost ill, "I didn't...dammit." They'd done so well, not talking about Jughead and her together, specifically.

"No, no. It's uh, what it is." Betty shook her head, "I guess, if I had to pick…" She pretend like she was trying to think really hard, but instead, she was trying not to think of Jughead, "A reading window. One of those bay windows surrounded by bookcases with really soft pillows and a really nice view."

"That sounds nice," Sweet Pea murmured, "I hope we find that for you."

He sounded completely sincere. Betty's heart went back to normal faster than it often did when she thought about Jughead. She wasn't sure if she missed the aching or not.

_July 24th, 2018 (mid-afternoon)_

They batted around the idea of breaking into a realtor's office and trying their luck that Wisconsinites still did some stuff on paper instead of all online, but the idea of fighting off even a walker or two more than they had to turned them both off to it. So, about four hours later, they just began taking back roads and stopping at farm houses along the way.

"I think we'll just feel it, ya know. Like fate." Sweet Pea said. Betty had never pegged him for a person that believed in superstitions or magic or all that mumbo-jumbo, but he was surprisingly relaxed about it.

Betty was not. This was going to be her house and she had a right to be anxious, she argued.

She was beginning to feel like Goldilocks. One house was too old, another house was too close to another property, one house was great but tiny...Betty was beginning to feel not only disheartened, but frustrated.

She also wanted to find a house by nightfall. Sweet Pea was of the mind that whenever they found a house it would be the right time. Betty also thought if they waited until Sweet Pea felt the 'rightness' of a house, they could be searching forever.

They found a beaten sign for an open house that boasted to have over 300 acres. It was half-ripped and mostly in the mud, but claimed that this farm house of someone's dreams lay just at the end of a road. Betty and Sweet Pea gave each other a shrug; because, why not.

Perhaps it was the fact that when they road up to the house that looked very much unlike a farmhouse that Betty realized what their mistake might have been before this. They'd been searching all day for a farmhouse. Maybe they needed a house that was on a farm.

"Well, shall we?" Sweet Pea asked, kicking the door open with his foot. Betty jumped down too.

"Wait," Sweet Pea threw an arm out to stop her, "Hear that?"

Betty paused, "No. What? I don't hear anything." In fact, all there was currently, was silence and the wind in the trees.

Sweet Pea's grin was almost infectious, "Exactly. Has to be a good sign, right?"

Betty couldn't deny this; any walkers that may be around would make noise. There was nothing to indicate there was a walking anywhere...but that didn't mean Betty was going to let down her guard.

Walking up to the front door, Betty held her breath as she carefully picked the lock. The door swung open. Before Betty could really get a good look inside, as she was pulling out her knife, she was thrown off her balance. There was a moment of panic before she realized it was just Sweet Pea, who had picked her up bridal style and had carried her across the threshold.

"What the hell?" Betty whispered angrily, scrambling to get down.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do at a new house?" Sweet Pea shrugged.

"Well...it's not...I…" Betty felt her face flush, "What if we walked right into a walker! And this might not even be the house." She put emphasis on 'the'. Plus, she didn't even want to bring up that's what married people do, not just two roomates (which, is what they were, sorta) entering their new pad for the first time.

"I feel like it is." Sweet Pea was absolutely serious, "I mean, look, it's set up to look like people are here for tours, but in reality, it's probably been empty since the start of this bullshit."

That was true; as her eyes adjusted and the light of the last couple hours of the day filtered into the rooms, Betty saw it was furnished, but un-lived, at least, nothing out of place. A small hope began to fill her.

She turned and let out a small scream. Sweet Pea slapped his hand over her mouth out of practice, and then they both froze in their place, waiting for an army of the undead to descend upon them, or a noise to indicate someone else was here. It never came.

Betty's heart still thumped wildly as she removed Sweet Pea's hand, staring up at the multiple heads of animals on the walls.

"If we stay here, those are going." She said dryly, brushing past Sweet Pea, "Coming?"

The house seemed pretty perfect, if Betty had to say so. It was six bedrooms with a generous sized kitchen and a wide, roomy central area for everyone to meet. From the posters on the wall, Betty gleaned this place had once been a training camp for businesses to take their co-workers on to meetings, from the awards and reviews proudly pinned up. A career retreat, or something. There was a wood-burning stove in all the big rooms and the master suite, which checked off one of their needs on the list.

As Betty was flipping through the realter's binder on the table, combing through what this place had to offer, Sweet Pea wandered off.

"Betty!" She snapped her head up, throwing her knife up and running toward him.

"What?" She asked, breathless, worried.

"There's a hot tub."

Betty let out a sigh of aggravation, "God, sweets, I thought it was a walker or something! Don't scare me like that!" She hit him on the arm as hard as she could.

"A hot tub!" Sweet Pea repeated, as though she hadn't heard.

"Yeah, I got that." She said, looking out onto the porch, the area in which he was referring to.

"There's also a reading nook, like you described. Didn't you see it?" He asked. Betty hadn't. She'd been busy trying to figure out what this place could offer. Sweet Pea was hopping he looked so thrilled, "Betty, c'mon, this has to be it. It not only has what we're looking for- realistically- but it has what we wanted as dream items. It's fate!"

Betty highly disliked the use of the word 'fate', but she couldn't deny how strangely perfect this place seemed.

"We don't know if it has all our wants, but it does seem promising," Betty tried to keep her voice level, "Let's keep looking before we decide."

They spent another hour scouring the house and making sure there were absolutely no walkers in the house. After, they checked out the surrounding structures; there were six, according to the binder that Betty now cradled her her arms. In the garage, there was a tool area with two ATVs covered in a tarp, along with a small cart machine. There was a cash of guns and weapons, along with a generator.

"God I love people in Wisconsin," Sweet Pea sighed, patting the generator, "Sane enough to have nice houses, but live in one of the coldest states so they are smart enough to have a plan B and C and D...if we can get this going…"

"Yeah," Betty agreed, nodding sharply, "Power. Plus, I bet we can vulture some solar panels…" She didn't want to admit her mind was already whirling with ideas, but it was. The Lodge Lodge had been nice, but it didn't have a generator or guns or off-road vehicles. It was all together impractical for real-world problems.

There was a smaller cabin with a deep freeze and a basement area for food storage. There was a barn, half-way renovated to at least have a sturdy structure, and an old grain storage. There was a secondary garage that had a normal car and more supplies. Farthest away was a tree blind, which Sweet Pea pointed out would be ideal for watching.

"Betty, you can't say that this isn't everything we've been looking for and more." Sweet Pea said, grabbing her shoulders, "This is it."

Betty gnawed on her lips. To say yes would mean that their search was over, which was equally refreshing and terrifying. She could just imagine, in some part of her mind, that if they stayed on the road it wasn't forsaking Jughead yet. They could still turn around, go look for him, prove he was dead or alive. To settle down would to be doing just that; to give it up, to settle. However, she was still firmly sure that Jughead was dead, due only to her own pain she felt somewhere deep, and the idea of sleeping on a real bed and not having to change locations every night was tempting. Plus, this house really was a beauty. She waffled for a long moment before smiling. They might not find a better option.

"Yeah, it is it."

_July 25th, 2018 (early morning)_

Betty took the master's space and Sweet Pea took another room. By the time they'd un-loaded some of their stuff, night was falling. They didn't have any safeties up yet, so they decided it would be better to lock the door and try to sleep.

But Betty couldn't sleep. This time, she wasn't going to go looking for Sweet Pea, despite how she tossed and turned. The bed was the most comfortable thing she'd had in ages, yet her mind wouldn't let her rest.

To her great surprise, around 1 am, there was a shadow across her door.

"Sweet Pea?" She asked, sitting up, "You can't sleep?" The 'either' hung in the air, unsaid, but from the way she'd trailed off, she was sure he knew.

"It's just, this house is uh, big. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's not the U-Haul anymore." Sweet Pea shuffled his feet, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He fibbed at the end.

"It is big," Betty didn't deny or confirm. She knew he was trying to say something without really saying it, but Betty wasn't going to dig herself deeper with this growing feeling she had for him by admitting she wished he was in here too.

"Betts," Sweet Pea gave a long sigh, "You're not really going to make me ask, are you?" Betty weighed her options, wondering how much she did want him to say it. Before she could invite him, he continued, "Fine, it gives me the heebies to be out here in a room by myself. I said it." His face was as red as a tomato.

Betty patted her side of the bed.

"I mean, I can sleep on the floor, or that chair." Sweet Pea said, pointedly not looking at her, "We don't need to share the bed."

"It's like a California king size. You don't have to sleep on the ground. Plenty of space and we don't have to touch each other. I can even put up a pillow barrier."

Sweet Pea stood, arms folded, jaw locked.

"We've been sleeping this close for a month," Betty pointed out, not understanding his resistance.

"But this is a  _bed_. It's different."

"It doesn't have to be. Nothing is going to happen." Betty said firmly. In the back of her mind, she did question whether or not she'd like something to happen, but from Sweet Pea's face, she doubted it would even get that far, "C'mon Jordan."

If she'd learned one thing, it was that using his name undoubtedly always got through to him.

"Okay." He agreed. He lay on the side Betty wasn't on, clothes still on. She wondered if it was one of the holdovers from their months on the road. Betty had found a pair of pj pants in the closet and was wearing her own tank. Maybe Betty was overly optimistic they wouldn't be attacked here in the middle of the night.

Sweet Pea fell asleep before Betty. They stayed on their own sides, nothing happened.

They woke up the next morning and the house was still standing.

If Betty traced it back, that was change number one in their relationship. Sweet Pea just continued to sleep on the other side of the very large bed from that night on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they've reached a home...things are different now...things will just start to get more different from here ;)
> 
> Some notes!
> 
> \- #dealwithbetty'smentalissues. Like, gosh I was so excited in s3 when I thought she'd actually been seeing someone, but alas...but she's a teen, so I get why sometimes she hasn't dealt with it and I dunno, I thought that V was the type of friend that would do something sneaky like that, for Betty's health, because sometimes that's what friends have to do
> 
> -Originally, I was going to tack on a like 'info' or something about all the baby serpents, like 2/3 sentences about them. Since then, I've started another fic (shameless plug) that's a supernatural!AU for Riverdale and usually when I make OCs I use them in all my stories of the same fandom. SO if you want to get to know the wolves better and how they got their nicknames, head over there, because it's mostly Sweet Pea's POV meaning the wolves have quite a big part in it :) Serpents are werewolves, Betty is a witch, and there's lots of other paranormal goodness floating around...
> 
> -Vegas. Lol. So when I was writing this, I wanted Alice to have a nickname that was innoculous enough to sound cool, without being obviously sexy like 'stripper' or something haha. Maybe I should have waited because in the episode next week it's parendale so we might find out her cool Serpent nickname. But it is what it is. I totally had forgotten that the Andrew's have a dog named Vegas, so my headcannon is that Fred heard Alice being called it once and Alice made some fib that she was called that because of something much more innocent and Fred was just like Archie is now and was like 'that's a cool name' and named his future dog that XD
> 
> -HGTV. That's totally how it is. I love it, no shade, but that's all I could think as I was writing out what I would have our team look for.
> 
> -The house they find is an actual house that was being sold like 6 months ago! I just looked up 'farmland for sale in Wisconsin' and found ones with houses. When I was scrolling, I had like six tabs open of houses I thought might work and this one just...well, it was perfect. I had written the thing about Sweet Pea wanting a hot tub and Betty wanting a nook before I started looking and honest to god, this one had those two things. Felt like fate XD I took screen shots of the interior. I don't think I'll share them, just because that feels sorta weird, but I will probably make a floor plan and drawings of their house. I mixed in a couple elements from other houses I liked just so it wasn't really stalkerish and all.
> 
> -So I've lived in Wisconsin pretty much all my life and I can totally attest that people here are sorta seriously prepared for the Apocalypse, while also being sane most of the time. I mean, you get 10 mins outside the three major cities and it's literally farmland and forests for miles. And, we're used to relying on other things to survive or not being within a good distance of a supermarket and stuff. My best friend's family, no joke, are doomsday preppers... and are totally normal people otherwise. Her dad's also an ex sniper, ya know they might be a good thing if zombies do break-out. More than that, to some extent, my family has a apocalypse plan. And, my parents are in the medical field. Smart af people. My dad went to Stanford. We're not crazy, I swear, and while we all agree a zombie outbreak is unlikely, we can't disagree that there might be some awful plague that doesn't have a fix that comes about. In that case, we have a cottage in the middle of the woods that was once an island. We'd just make it an island again and wait it all out. I almost used my family's cottage for Sweet Pea/Betty, since it's also in Wisconsin, but I had some different plans for them...
> 
> Anyway, none of that is important, just thought it was interesting!
> 
> I would really really love it if you love this if you would be so kind to leave a review :)


	8. Track Seven: It's the End of the World

_Late Summer_ **  
**

The rest of the summer was spent with hard work to turn this once-corporate retreat into a safe haven.

The first day, they went back and found the sign in the mud and took it. They couldn't have anyone else finding it, not without them wanting to. Sweet Pea was the one to remind Betty that the next time they were in town they should make their 'Jughead/Sweet Pea/Betty' signature and Betty felt a knot in her stomach over the fact she hadn't thought of it.

As it turned out, Betty took over the house while Sweet Pea worked outside. However, the gender roles weren't quite as traditional as they may seem.

First, Betty got the ATVs up and running. That was almost too easy, and took a day at most. But, now they had something smaller and better for taking routes through the woods as compared to the U-Haul. She also re-wired the truck in the spare time, because she could.

Betty told herself fairly quickly that if she could figure out the mechanics of a car, she surely could figure out the mechanics of pipes and wires in a house. She wasn't an engineer or an electrician by any means, but she was smart enough and had all the time in the world to get it right.

Well, not all the time, since her goal was to get the house on its feet by the time fall hit, before winter got bad.

She spent most of her time going between the main house and the cabin where the generator was, attempting to return electricity to the house. Also, since a generator wasn't meant to last forever, to attempt to figure out how to connect some of the solar panels Sweet Pea had found in town.

Sweet Pea became the farmer and gatherer. He'd spent years on the streets and the forests of Riverdale, and so knowing the difference between a poisonous berry and a tasty one became an imperative skill. He also took survey of the farmland near the house and began plotting. They went into town as little as possible, but the first time they did, Sweet Pea picked up a farmer's almanac and enough seeds to open up their own gardening store.

They went to a hunting store and picked up a bow and arrow to hunt around the area closer to fall, since right now they were surviving on semi-perishables.

"Maybe it runs in the family," Betty commented, picking it up and aiming it like she'd seen Cheryl do. A part of her hoped so. She wasn't an awful aim with a gun, but they couldn't be drawing attention to themselves with that anymore, as quiet as the area had been. She aimed at a knot in the side of the barn...and was horrendously off. She fully expected Sweets to tease her endlessly, but he just looked a little lost in thought.

"I sort of wish Cheryl was just here," Sweet Pea sighed, "She's a great shot."

They tried to talk about how much they missed their old friends as much as possible. It was just too painful.

They also loaded up on as much chicken wire as they could and had decided to form a protective and spikey barrier around the main housing areas. Betty took a break from the inside of the house to help Sweet Pea set this up, six feet high. That took nearly a month in itself, but she felt much more safe once it was established. She also nicked her hands more times than she could count, even with expensive gloves, but she figured it was a testament to how dangerous their barrier was. This would be a good thing.

Sweet Pea and Betty also planned on walker-traps together, including bells on branches over pits with spikes, bear traps (which Sweet Pea stayed far away from, and let Betty set), and other diversions to get the walkers before they got to the barrier. The farms were on the outside, since it was impractical to fence in their whole area and the barrier was a last resort, but a much needed safety measure. They discussed how in the future they may better it, such as building an actual wall, and it wasn't until after the conversation ended Betty realized they'd been talking years together here, planning on time down the road that should have hurt a lot more than it did.

At night, Sweet Pea cooked.

Betty wasn't a bad cook, her mother had certainly taught her well. Sweet Pea was just...better. He said it came from his years in which his mom was still alive, since someone had to cook for the both. He said he rarely had money to go to the store and buy things, but he was near enough to a personal garden where he'd sneak in through a hole in the fence and nab a tomato or two and a head of lettuce when it was dark out.

"That's probably the first illegal thing I did," He commented, "But, it made me need to learn how to cook with healthy shit, so…"

He shrugged.

"You'd be dead otherwise," Betty said, which was a fact, "And we've done more illegal things than I can count. But it's the end of the world, so...it's all about perspective, I guess."

Frankly, she was becoming increasingly more and more relieved that Sweet Pea was around.

_Late Summer (July, maybe?)- Betty's Estimate_

One of the nights, when Sweet Pea was hunched over the farming books they had and Betty was reading a novel in the living room, a thought hit her.

"Do we still have phone chargers?"

"Do we have power yet?" Sweet Pea asked, sparing a quick glance toward her, "I think there might be one in my bag."

It was sort of stupid to have a cell phone in the apocalypse, since there was no power most places and no cell service anywhere, but Betty had kept hers...for old times sake.

She got up abruptly and went rifling through his bag until she found that thin white cord. Then, she went and fetched one of the solar powered batteries she'd set out on the porch three days ago and plugged her phone in. Sweet Pea watched with interest, marking his page and coming up behind Betty.

"Huh," He clicked his tongue. He vanished and reappeared with his own phone.

"Couldn't get rid of it?" She asked, tilting her head toward the sleek black case. It was an iPhone, an older model. She bet that, if anything, he was keeping it to keep his music around. They'd just forgotten really about it, with all of the other stuff going on. About the creature comforts a favorite song gave. Plus, Sweet Pea wasn't afraid to sing to himself during the day, good tone or bad. Luckily, he wasn't an awful singer, almost enjoyable. Whenever Betty goaded him to sing louder, he always made it sound awful.

She weighed her phone in her hand. Why had she kept hers? Music, in general, wasn't a big deal. She couldn't text anyone anymore. She wasn't usually so nostalgic. So, why?

Hers was the newest on the market, or had been, but to most people they would just be useless piles of metal and electronics. Neither had kept them charged after leaving Riverdale. Until now, Betty hadn't dared to look. A part of her was terrified that she'd charge it, and she would have service magically and there would be messages from Jughead, and then she'd feel guilty for thinking he was dead. A part of her was terrified that there wouldn't be and there never would be again and she'd be forced to deal with the reality of it. Jughead was Schrodinger's cat. Betty, on one hand, wasn't sure she wanted to open that box.

In this moment, those fears weren't quite as forward. It wasn't until the home screen opened and it was empty that she had those thoughts, and they were a passing ache at most.

"Who's that?" Sweet Pea leaned over her shoulder.

"My niece and nephew; Juniper and Dagwood." Betty said, as the lockscreen was her with two babies on her lap. This hurt; seeing that. She was glad to have it, however.

"What sort of fucked up names is that? I can't even tell which one is the boy name and which is the girl. God, why do rich people have to give their kids such strange names?" Sweet Pea winced. Betty took little offence to the comment; she'd loved her sister's babies, but it was names she would have never in a million years named her own.

"The sort of names someone who had kids with her cousin gives her kids. Although, my sister didn't know Jason was our cousin at the time." She rushed to add.

"Still creepy," Sweet Pea shuddered. Sweet Pea hadn't been in Betty's radar during that whole debacle, so she wondered how much he knew on the subject. She almost asked, since he was a Serpent and he had to have known a little, but choose not to. Maybe some stories were better buried. Like Jason.

Not for the first time, she wondered if the babies were alive. How could they be? How could a kid survive walkers? The thought depressed her greatly, so she tried to shove the question from her thoughts as swiftly as she could. She'd come to the acceptance a long time ago that Dagwood and Juniper probably hadn't made it.

Her mind wasn't made up about her mom and sister, however, since Cooper girls were feisty.

Betty opened her notes, "Here it is! You know those Tasty or Goodful videos that were on Facebook like, everywhere?" She asked.

"Uh-huh. I wouldn't cook half the stuff they did, but it was fun to waste time watching," Sweet Pea said. "But we have no internet, Cooper."

"I know that. I wonder if I could...never mind," She had the briefest thought of maybe trying to re-connect a signal, and added that to a to-do list later, "Anyway, I was the sort of nerd who copied instructions onto my notes. I wanted to print out a cookbook of stuff one day, like for college, you know?"

She opened her notes app on her phone, meticulously organized, and scrolled through the 'Tasty' folder until she found it.

"There had been a video about how to start growing your own plants from plants you own, instead of from seeds. Might not be super useful, since we'd have to find onions and lettuce that was still good and laying around, but I dunno...I just thought of it." It was strange this was the thought that had gotten her phone out of its storage space. Not the thoughts of Jughead, Veronica, Kevin, or Archie...but a stupid list from a weird Youtube channel. Okay, so the point of it wasn't stupid, admittedly, and maybe it just showed how truly different her life was now.

She let Sweet Pea read through it, and he hummed in thought. "Well, it's nice to have. Plus, now we also have a recipe on how to make pizza in a mug and a gigantic burger filled with cheese." He said, half-sarcastic as he began reading through her phone.

"We might use some of the stuff. We should probably start an herb garden too...eventually pharmacutiles will run out." Betty added, trying not to be embarrassed that, out of it all, this list wasn't the most useful. She reached back for her phone, but Sweet Pea held it above his head. He towered over her. Jughead had been only a little taller than her, but Sweet Pea was like a giant.

"What, and give up this opportunity that I have to creep through Betty Cooper's phone? No way!"

Betty pouted, knowing that Sweet Pea could win in a fight if she tried to wrestle it from him. It's not like she had anything on that phone that she could currently think of that she wouldn't want someone seeing, but she'd wanted to go through her own phone first, after all this time.

"Only if you let me look through yours." She threw it back at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, whatever," Sweet Pea shrugged, throwing his phone towards her.

"So, to make it fair, how about we let mine charge and then while yours is charging, we look through the phones."

"Why does it have to be fair?" Sweet Pea asked, still scrolling, hardly looking up.

"Because…" Betty trailed off, "Why shouldn't it?"

Sweet Pea gave an elaborate sigh, "Pinky promise you'll let me go through it?"

"Yes." Betty agreed. She was just as curious about what Sweet Pea's phone held. He made a bit motion of setting it on the counter and Betty set his down too. He went back to his book and Betty to hers, but the anticipation crackled between them.

As soon as Betty's was fully charged, they switched them out and the fun began.

There was something fairly intimate about both of them going through each other's phone. It was something you didn't let an aquantice do or even a casual friend. Betty had maybe handed her phone over to a handful of people; she could actually count on her fingers the number of people she'd willingly let into her phone to explore- Jughead and Veronica. She knew most others were like her in that sense, so to be doing this with Sweet Pea's phone marked a second change; one in which she acknowledged that he'd managed to become the most important person in her life at the moment, a person she trusted implicitly, a person who she had only a momentary doubt about handing over her phone to. That said a lot to Betty. Also, she was curious to see what he had to say about her phone's contents. She wanted to let him see this. To give Sweet Pea her phone was akin to handing him her diary.

Sweet Pea's lock screen was a picture of what she thought might be the Southside. It was sort of blurry and taken in the middle of the night, but the train tracks were a familiar tug. She wondered if he maybe took it when they were fleeing to the North Side all those weeks ago, as a final reminder. His background was him, Toni, Fangs, and another Serpent that Betty didn't know the name of off the top of her head. It was one of the twins, though, either Jedi or were all wearing really outdated clothing and each looking pensively in a totally different direction. She gleaned they were in a fitting room of somewhere, maybe a Goodwill? The picture was at least a year old, possibly two, if she had to guess because Sweet Pea had a more boyish look to his face and Toni looked more child-like than adult.

"What's this?" Betty asked, "The background? I don't get it."

"80's rock album, Betty," Sweet Pea said, "Duh?"

She had to admit, it was pretty funny, once the words registered. It also told her that he cared a great deal about his friends, to have them on his background. Betty's own background was just a simple pink pattern. She didn't like too much distraction behind her apps.

She wondered if Sweet Pea found it odd Jughead wasn't her background. He'd been her lockscreen, until she'd changed it to the twins. There was other traces of Jughead on her phone, of course, and Sweet Pea hadn't said anything yet. So, Betty focused back on Sweet Pea's phone.

He had a handful of apps, mostly games like Words with Friends or Candy Crush. The usual media sites- twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Reddit- along with the generic ones that all iPhones came with. Apart from that was Uber and a couple apps Betty didn't instantly recognize, but could guess. Those didn't interest her as much.

The first thing Betty did was go to his iTunes.

The eye being the window to someone's soul was all good and dandy if you were from the medieval period, but in modern days, there was nothing more telling about what someone listened to in regards to music.

He had more songs than she did on hers, near 2,000. Betty would rotate her songs out on her phone to what she was listening to at the moment, keeping the full library on her computer. She wishes she hadn't done that now, since she didn't have her laptop anymore.

"I never knew you were into metal," Sweet Pea snickered, the first comment about her phone. He'd clearly had the same idea she did.

"Ah, well, that's new…" Betty said. She'd become more accustomed to heavy rock and metal because of what was always playing at the White Wyrm. A part of it reminded her of Jughead, to be honest, since she associated those songs with him. Her personal tastes landed somewhere a little bit like folk, a little bit like alternative. Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, Hozier...she'd had tickets to go see a Lana Del Rey concert around the upcoming August, something she just recalled and was very upset about.

Sweet Pea's music had everything she sort of guess; some grunge and 'emo' music, along with a couple tunes she would have never expected- like Miley Cyrus or the Backstreet Boys.

They spent the better part of a couple hours making subtle jabs about each other's tunes, scrolling meticulously through each other's libraries.

After, Betty's next stop was his Kindle app. Since she'd never taken Sweet Pea for a reader to begin with, the idea that he read anything sort of shocked her. Then again, he had picked up novels to read while he was on watch, but Betty just assumed it was lack of other activities.

It wasn't the modern classics Betty read, such as Toni Morrison, nor was it Jughead's almost pretentious love of literature (as Reggie had called it once), but there was more than just a random book or two on there. He had the Harry Potter series, and lots of other sci-fi titles Betty had never heard of, but wondered if he would allow her to read, in the future. Betty glanced up at him over the edge of the phone. She wondered if he was a secret Star Wars or Star Trek nerd? The thought that Sweet Pea might show up to comic cons or know Klingon beneath this gruff exterior made her lips curl into a small, happy grin.

Next, she went to his photos. Lots of group pictures with the Serpents. A lot with Toni, a lot with Fangs...some new ones with Cheryl, much to Betty's surprise. Five or so with Jughead, although none with just the two of them. It was clear to Betty that this had been his family and he cared deeply about all of them. She had never asked him about how he felt about Jughead taking over, a kid that swooped in and claimed a throne due to his father after never growing up with them. She wondered if it was even worth asking now, since the Serpents made up a group of two, at this moment, that they knew were alive. And, he was the 'leader' of the Serpents between them anyway, but it probably still stung a little.

She opened her mouth to ask him something about a picture, but she noticed the dark look on Sweet Pea's face. She tried to guess what he was looking at. She went back to his phone, but stole glances here and there, trying to gauge his reaction.

And his expression just grew more and more somber.

In fact, it took away from Betty fully enjoying her chance to stalk his Instagram or his Twitter feed as her mind whirled with questions, mostly, what was causing him to look so upset?

As far as she knew, she hadn't texted anything mean or catty about him to anyone. Frankly, he hadn't been on her radar singularly enough to be texting about. And, if she did, could he blame her? She was pretty sure that before this, Sweet Pea had tolerated her, if he gave a thought to her at all. So it's not like she was a lone in that respect.

So what was it?

He seemed to focus on one thing for a long time, his expression pulled together and his hands over his mouth, frowning at it. He'd then swipe, and stare some more.

"It's past midnight," Betty broke the silence after a long while. She didn't have the courage to ask what he was looking at, specifically, "I'm going to bed." She set his phone back down in front of him cautiously.

"I'll be up a bit longer," He murmured, but he seemed a thousand miles away. She tried to glance at the screen as she walked past him, but couldn't see anything specific. He looked at her as she passed him and the look he gave her was anguished, if she had to identify an emotion. It just made no sense at all to her.

Sweet Pea didn't come back to the room at all that night. She knew because she was tossing and turning until about four AM, waiting.

In the morning, a noise brought her out of her slumber. She snapped her hand out, grabbing the knife she always kept on the bedside table. She might have grown comfortable enough to wear pajamas to bed, but a weapon was never out of her reach while sleeping.

She looked over and saw Sweet Pea's side of the bed had not been touched. A rock plummeted to the bottom of her stomach, causing her anxiety. Was he so put off by her phone that he hadn't been able to bring himself to sleep in the room? What could he have been looking at? Betty had gone through her phone, or what she recalled having, all night and came up with nothing.

The noise echoed through the house. It didn't sound like walkers, it sounded like...music.

Betty threw on a robe and raised her knife, stalking through the house, carefully still.

_Lock him in a uniform, book burning, blood letting...Every motion escalate, automotive incinerate...light a candle…_

A song Betty vaguely recognized, though she couldn't place the name.

She came into the main dining area to see Sweet Pea standing at the counter, his iPhone blaring music as he cooked breakfast. She hung back a second, watching him dance a little to the song and sing every word to a very difficult song.

_It's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it-_

Betty couldn't help but snort as the title sang itself.

Sweet Pea spun on his heels.

"Morning, Coop." He greeted, his expression completely turned from last night, "Ya hungry? I cooked omelettes on the fireplace outside." He said.

"Yeah, starved." Betty said, "Nice song?"

"I decided to make an 'It's the Apocalypse' playlist. Figured it was duly appropriate. Or, update the one I jokingly had. Had to edit it alot, I personally thought the end of the world would come in fire or a comet or some shit." He said, humming the melody, "I really missed music. I say on our next outing, we raid a record store. There's gotta be CD players still around somewhere. I mean, how did I survive this long without music?"

True; the only music they'd found in this house was either country (which, neither were a fan of at most times) and gospel music. They'd worn through the interest of both of those pretty fast.

"The omelette turned out good I think. Once we have some fresh tomatoes and onions and stuff it will be better. But this is good. I like it. I'll have to get used to no cheese, that will suck, but I guess we gotta make sacrifices."

Sweet Pea was blabbering. Betty was almost sure this was the most she'd ever heard him talk, unprompted. It made her wonder if his sunny disposition was true or if it was all a facade that he was desperately trying to keep up. From the way his smile didn't quite meet his eyes, she had a feeling it was the latter.

She decided not to press it, not right now.

"Today's bath day," Betty reminded him.

"Yeah. Any idea when we'll have running water again?" He asked, motioning to the sink.

"I can only focus on one thing at a time. Water or electricity/gas." She reminded him.

"Will you be done soon?" She knew why he seemed concerned. It was already August and in Wisconsin, as she'd learned, the weather could change within a blink of an eye. It could choose to snow the first week of September, or it could stay in the 80s until Halloween. There was no way to tell. It seemed like a cruddy way to live, and she wondered who would choose to be here (besides them, of course). Then again, it was probably the smaller population that led them to being here alone and uncontested, so maybe she couldn't complain too much.

"Of course," Betty blinked. She was inches away from getting one or the other to work, she could just feel it. Her goal was gas and electricity first; they had the wood-burning fireplaces, but she wanted a back up. Then, water next, hopefully by mid-september, when it would start to become too cold to go jump in the stream anyway.

There were still a lot of kinks to work out on both accounts.

"Will the harvest be ready?" She shot back in the same tone, tilting her head.

"Soon, uh-huh. But we should start hunting soonish too. If I have time, I might try to make a smoke house. There's deer fucking everywhere." Sweet Pea seemed okay, the more she scrutinized him, but all his words were carefully chosen. She wondered if she could get him to spill.

She finished eating and put the dishes in the sink, which was filled right now with soapy water from the well.

"Where's my phone?" She asked.

"Oh, over there. I charged it again." He said, but she noticed he couldn't even look directly at it. She cautiously unplugged it, double clicking on the home screen to see if the last things he was looking at were still open in the app.

They were, but that didn't mean she suddenly understood what was going on in Sweet Pea's mind. If anything, it only left her with more questions.

The last couple things open were all things about her...and Jughead. The photo album of their photos together (along with some tasteful nudes Betty had completely forgotten were there too), their messages leading up to the day they were separated, and other things on her phone that showed their love. Their relationship. It felt like Betty was reading someone else's diary, though, looking through these. Like a epic love story, as it was, but of someone's life that was not hers. When Betty looked up again, Sweet Pea was gone. She was a little greatful. All she really had the strength to do was to drag herself back into the room, close the door, and cry a little. Seeing the pictures, the messages, the places in which Jughead Jones had put himself into her phone broke down the barriers she'd been keeping up for months.

She felt like she was crying for the man she'd lost long ago, for a relationship that somewhere, she always knew was doomed to end in tragedy.

She loved Jughead. She had loved him more passionately than she'd love anyone else in her life; more than her mother, her father, or her sister. Her family wasn't really 'touchy-feely', so that made sense. Jughead had been the first time she'd been with someone who loved her back just as much and made an effort to show here that.

He'd always be her first love. You couldn't take that away. A part of your first love always stayed buried within you, a ember nearly out, no longer burning.

But she loved him, as in a past tense. It had now been four months without Jughead, nearing five. Soon, the time without Jughead would eclipse the amount of time with him.

And she was still here.

This morning, when she'd been in the threshold of the kitchen, when music had been playing and the smell of eggs had wafted through the house, when the morning light lit up the area...she'd been happy. It had felt normal. It had felt almost unreal, a glimpse into a world maybe without the walkers. And, even when she reminded herself there was walkers, it had still felt complete.

She'd been so busy trying to survive she hadn't realized somewhere in there, she'd begun to thrive with Sweet Pea. She'd become accustomed to this place. She'd called it home the other day and she didn't even think of that until now.

This was her home and she loved this, in the present. She cared for Sweet Pea a great ton.

And she could see herself really falling for him, or falling into this life with him.

Betty tinkered around with some wires for an hour or two, but was ultimately very distracted by her revelation. When she aquised she was unable to get anything of value done, she went looking for Sweet Pea.

He was out in the southern fields, as he'd written on his schedule (so Betty could always find him in case of trouble) tending to the corn rows there. She came carting the bath bucket, running through different things in her head to ask him before she arrived, mostly that she was curious about hs reaction last night. And, Betty had never been one to just let a matter lie.

Sweet Pea paused when she approached. He had to know eventually she would fetch him to go to the stream. The thermostat outside the house said it was nearing 88 degrees today, so unsurprisingly, he was shirtless.

Betty had seen Sweet Pea shirtless. Around week three and a half, he'd stopped worrying about that. Likewise, he'd seen Betty in her bra. Modesty isn't always completely available after the world went to shit.

However, today, Betty felt that familiar heat creeping through her to see him like this. The one she'd shoved down in the van a while back, the one she'd done very well to keep under wraps.

"I figured we'd go before it gets dark," She rattled the bucket, "Can you stop?"

"I was going to finish soon anyway." He shrugged. His voice was toneless, almost distant.

She bit the inside of her cheek, however, said little else. All of her questions that she'd so carefully pre-worded vanished at the lack of light in his eyes. Was he suddenly tiring of her as a partner? Was he planning on leaving in the dead of night? Was it her?

They were silent on their way to the stream. Betty went first, per usual, stripping down to her underwear and scrubbing her skin until it was pink, before bracing herself in the cold water to wash it away. She shampooed and conditioned her hair, looking back up to the ridge were Sweet Pea very patiently sat watch.

She wondered if he'd ever been tempted to turn around, steal a quick peak? Betty only momentarily had these thoughts, and then the idea that she had to be vigilant overrode that, however, she still wondered.

She did her work quickly, since a freezing cold brooke wasn't anything she wanted to languish in. She squeezed the excess water of her hair onto the bank, throwing on a pair of cleanish clothes and coming up to Sweet Pea.

"Your turn." She said, nodding backwards.

Sweet Pea started taking his shirt off in front of her, and cussed as something tinkled to the ground. He leaned down, picking up the dog tags that Betty had seen him literally never take off, not for anything. He wore it more than he wore his serpent jacket.

She knew what dog tags were, who they were from. She'd never asked, for reasons she was drawing a blank for, in that moment. Maybe it was because she hoped he'd offer it up himself. Maybe it was a topic she had decided was off limits. Maybe nothing.

Sweet Pea stared at them, dejected, for a second before turning to Betty.

"Can you…?" He held them out. The chain had broken, rusted away. Betty clasp them in her palms. He could have just as easily brought them to the river with him, but hadn't. He'd still trusted her with this.

"Whose are these?" She found herself asking, not looking at the name yet. She wanted to hear from him.

"Is this really the place?" He almost smiled, but it was a watery one at that.

"No, you're right," Betty agreed, "Nevermind." They were in the middle of a forest with a few knives between them, but not much else, miles away from their home. Sweet Pea turned to go wash, but turned back.

"It was my cousin's." Sweet Pea said, "Penny's brother. He was never a serpent...no, he got out of Riverdale first chance he got. He's the most honorable person I know. Complete opposite of Penny. He was about fifteen years older than me. Always said he'd take me away somewhere else when my ma would undoubtably die of some overdose. Then he went overseas and that's all I have left. I stole it from Penny and she gave me this," He pointed to a faint wound on his ribs that Betty had never asked about, figuring it was a story that would horrify her, "When I was 12. But she didn't take it back. I think she wanted to hurt me more than she ever wanted to recover this."

"I'll keep it safe." Betty promised. Sweet Pea gave a second smile, but this one was a little more true.

"I know you will, Coop." He shook his head from the thoughts, "Anyway, I'll be back in a sec." He said, waving down to the stream. Betty obediently turned around, one fist around the dogtags, another with a knife.

Slowly, she opened her fingers to examine the dog tags, curiosity getting the better of her.

The name on it was worn, and she could recall how Sweet Pea's fingers would drag over the metal square whenever he was thinking about something hard, or upset, or sad. It brought him a comfort in a way that Betty knew he had needed. Despite the way the letters were fading, she could still read it.

_PEABODY, PAXTON L_

_XXX-XX-XXXX_

_A NEG_

_CHRISTIAN_

Betty wondered if Paxton knew how much Sweet Pea needed him, but how he had still managed to comfort him after all these years.

She saw Sweet Pea heading back and blinked, wondering how long she'd been preoccupied with this. Getting lost in her thoughts was happening a lot today.

The walk back was equally silent, but Betty was even more confused. A guy that was planning on ditching her wouldn't have told her what he just did, nor trusted her with those dog tags.

Once they were inside the perimeter, Betty decided she couldn't wait a moment more to say something. She may lose her courage otherwise.

"Jordan?"

"Yeah?" Sweet Pea looked at her cautiously. She only used his name on rare occasions.

"I just want to say…" She sighed. She's decided somewhere on the hike back to turn it toward her instead of bombarding him with questions, "That I like it here."

"I'm glad?"

"No," Betty frowned, "I like it here with you. I don't regret not looking for Jughead. I stopped thinking about him all the time weeks ago. I stopped ruminating on the fact he's dead and I'm not. In all, I only think of him in passing." The admittance of that outlook stung a bit, but only because she didn't feel as guilty about the whole thing as a really devoted girlfriend should have, "Are you unhappy here?" She finished.

"Christ, Betty, no of course not." Sweet Pea frowned, "I'm alive, I have a house that's not bad and life actually hasn't turned completely shitty. You're not an idiot, so being together is easy, okay? Why would you ask that?"

"Well, you...last night…" Betty trailed off, "Ah, nevermind." She decided after a moment, deciding the topic wasn't worth pursuing, since Sweet Pea seemed to be looking at her with such confusion. She wondered if she'd merely made it up, his moodiness and his such, "Anyway, see you back at the house?"

"Uh-huh. Just got some stuff to finish." He stuck his hands in his pockets. As she was leaving, she heard, "You know, I was looking at the dates on the phones and yesterday would have been the first day of school for the new year. I would have been a senior."

Back at the house, Betty realized that Sweet pea's admittance had given her a whole slew of information she did not previously have.

1 ) The dates on both of their phones were totally wrong (still citing it was somewhere in June) which means that Sweet Pea must have looked on her calendar app and counted back or forward to the current date. Betty couldn't have even said it was a Monday with any certainty, but she wasn't going to think he was lying

2 ) Sweet Pea was a year older than her. Somewhere, in the recesses of her mind, she thought this might be knowledge she had. Riverdale was a small enough school that oftentimes, classes got mixed in. It's not like she paid close attention to Sweet Pea all too much before this, so the fact that he'd only popped up in two or three of her classes had never flagged her attention. It was something she think Jughead said offhandedly, but never took to heart. Cheryl was a year older, and Betty forgot this often enough as it was.

3) Sweet Pea was turning 18 this year. An adult. He was a year away from getting away and finishing high school and then this happened. How sucky. She made a note to ask him what his plans had been originally, had walkers not taken over.

4) She didn't know his birthday.

5) She didn't think Sweet Pea knew her birthday, and birthdays seemed like basic info people should know about each other.

6) If his dates were correct- and it was late in August, so she figured it was- that meant that her own birthday had come and gone completely without notice. She was seventeen now. She'd had a feeling it was approaching, but her birthday had been a whole week and a half ago. She was seventeen and she didn't feel a lick different from sixteen. She would have been getting a car this year, had she been alive. It would have been crappy and used and probably in a boring color like gray, but her dad was supposed to get her a car, since Polly had gotten one at seventeen.

In all, it was a lot to process, a lot to come out of a comment made off-hand and that had almost gone unsaid.

There were certain things she could react to, could remedy. She knew that this date put them at late August, which meant there was much less time before the coming fall than she thought. A part of her reminded herself it would have been smart to be working on getting heat into the house, but she let talked herself into just a couple hours to herself. To bake a cake to celebrate a day she hadn't known had passed, but a date she should be marking all the same.

If it were a normal day, she'd be making cake for it. As it was, they didn't have enough eggs or the things to make it, and an oven wasn't set up. She looked through the meager gathering of food- also reminding herself that perhaps they needed to go out once again before the sun fell- and decided to make something as vaguely sweet as she could. She had a deep longing for the Dairy Queen Ice Cream cakes her mother and father would get her as a child, despite the fact she hasn't had one of those since she turned 14. It's weird what one misses when there's nothing to have. If it was a normal birthday and her mother had made her white cake with icing and her friends had been there, Betty might not have missed that ice cream cake at all.

She could also ask Sweet Pea when his birthday was. She figured it was something she should know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, notes!
> 
> *Legit, like I watched a tasty vid once and I was like 'huh, that would be useful to know for the apocalypse' and that sorta jumpstarted this whole fic if you'd believe it?
> 
> *I love going through other people's music. It's so interesting to see what someone else listens to! I think you can tell a lot about a person
> 
> *My brother has his phone background as an 80s album cover, and it's hilarious. I also feel like, at one point, the group filmed/edited a cheesy 90s sitcom theme song with like a really 90s song and everyone dramatically looking up at the camera and smiling
> 
> *I know, I know that the 'End of the World As We Know It' song is so cliched and and on every playlist, but I LOVE that song. My dad knows all the words by heart and it's hilarious because if we play it around the house, he'll just start off by humming it and slowly get more into it. Way back before I published this, I wasn't happy with its working title, and then I wrote this chapter and I was like 'what if Sweet Pea had a playlist for the end of the world?' and since then I've gone back to make him more into music
> 
> *On the dogtags the XX-XXX-XXX is where a social security number would be, but I didn't want to make one up.
> 
> *I'm not sure when Betty's bday is. BUT since both times we skip over summer and Betty's bday isn't mentioned during the series, I'm assuming it's July-August
> 
> *My headcanon is that Sweet Pea is a year old. Dunno why, but it is
> 
> So, I hope you all enjoyed this new chapter! Remember to review ;)


	9. Track Eight: Living Dead Girl

_August 20th, 2018_

Sweet Pea came in before the sky was dark, as he always did.

"Here," Betty said, handing off half of her sugary concoction to him.

"What's this?" He asked.

"To celebrate...that you would have been a senior, and my birthday." She said. Sweet Pea was just using his fingers to dig into the treat and hadn't bothered for a spoon.

"Today's your birthday?" He asked, bits of crumbs falling from his mouth.

"No." Betty sighed, "My birthday was August 12th and I didn't know we passed it." She gave a watery smile.

"Oh, that sucks. Seventeen?" Sweet Pea surmised. Betty gave a sharp nod, "Well, seventeen isn't that great. You're not sixteen and you're not quite eighteen. Just ask me; seventeen was the shittiest year of my life so far."

"Worse than your mom dying?" Betty asked before she realized what she was saying. She slapped her fingers over her mouth, mortified. Sweet Pea either realized she meant no malice, or he didn't care that much.

"Yeah. It was a blessing when she left this earth. The literal end of the world? Nothing can be worse than this," He insisted.

"Well, when's your birthday?" Betty asked, glad to see him grinning and acting more the regular around her. Suddenly, Sweet Pea's mood changed. Betty cussed whatever she'd said to change that, but honestly, it wasn't even that difficult a question!

"Fall."

"Do you have to be like that?" Betty snapped, irritated.

"Like what?" Sweet Pea puffed out his chest, crossing his arms.

"So freaking mysterious about things that, I think, aren't that difficult of questions!" Betty said, "We've been together months, shouldn't I know?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, I think it does! I like to hold onto these things, you know?" Betty implored.

"It didn't even matter when the world hadn't been run by walkers. Pretty much no one celebrated it," Sweet Pea gave a shake of his head, "But I forgot. You have a thing about making birthdays a big deal, even if it's unwanted."

Betty's expression darkened immediately. Somehow, Sweet Pea had heard about the disaster that was Jughead's birthday party last year. The first big fight she'd gotten in with Jughead was that. It was, she'll admit, not one of her finer moments. However, from the look in Sweet Pea's eyes, she knows how carefully those words were chosen. It wasn't said out of a moment of passion and malice, it was something he knew would sting, something he'd thought about saying.

"I think you're being an asshole just to be a jerk." Betty rubbed her arms, a defensive motion, holding back tears of utter frustration, "Why?"

"I am an asshole, Cooper." Sweet Pea replied lazily. She'd wondered why Jughead had disliked Sweet Pea so much when all he'd ever been to Betty was somewhat kind, if not civil. However, a personality was rearing its ugly head and Betty wondered which side of Sweet Pea was true; this side, or the side she felt she knew.

She gave a firm shake of her head, "No. You make others think you are, but you aren't."

"God you have to go out and save the fucked up ones, huh? Does that get you off?" Sweet Pea laughed harshly, "I totally am a jerk."

"You keep saying that," Betty argued furiously, "But for some reason you've thrown up these walls again! I do not believe for a second that this monster is the real face of the same guy I've been traveling with since May! The guy who watches me sleep so protective, the guy who was upset when Toni and Cheryl left, the guy who sleeps next to me." She pointed out. When his expression did not lift, "Jordan-,"

"It's Sweet Pea," He snarled, standing, pacing, "It's Sweet Pea, Betty Cooper!"

"Yeah, but you told me that name and it means something." She grabbed her plate from the table, forcing herself to set it down in the sink carefully instead of hurling it there, like she wanted, "Are you going to leave?"

"What?" This seemed to pause him. He faltered, his expression dropping.

"Leave? Are you going to leave. Because you've suddenly made it seem like I don't know you and I shouldn't trust you and you don't want to be here." Betty was terrified at the thought of living alone, but she was strong enough to have the will to live. She'd figure something out. She steeled herself for his confirmation.

"What?" Sweet Pea repeated, "No...of course not. I-,"

"Then snap the hell out of it," Betty spun, leaning against the counter and slamming her fists down, "And I'll let this whole stupid fight go if you just tell me your birthday!"

Unsureness plagued Sweet Pea's face. He wavered, biting his lip. Betty realized she still had his dog tags in her pocket and sighed, putting them back in front of him. He grabbed them out, and then mumbled something. Betty nearly didn't hear it.

"Huh?"

"October 9th."

"That's-," Betty broke off abruptly, the words nearly coming out of her mouth before she fully registered it. She looked back to Sweet Pea who looked torn between guilt and anger.

"Uh-huh. A week after Jughead's." From Betty's confused look, he continued, "Yeah, I know it. I know the date. FP wouldn't shut the hell up about his son's birthday every year, weather he was talking to him or not. It's a date in my mind I can't scrub away."

"Ah."

"And I knew if I said it, you'd only think of Jughead."

Betty met his gaze, frowning, "Is that why you've been so distant? Are you jealous I think of Jughead?" She wasn't even angry, at this point, just confused. And, truth be told, she rarely thought of Jughead moment to moment. Maybe, if something sparked her memory and because they had been together a long time, but it wasn't like the direct weeks after. And if she was thinking of Jughead, what was it to him? However, she shook her head.

"Jordan, I really don't think about him much anymore. Maybe a little nostalgically, but it's not like I...I don't…" Betty fumbled, "You pointed out yourself that we didn't date too long in the real span of things. In a couple months, I'll have been with you longer and that really puts things into a perspective."

"But you should be thinking of him," Sweet Pea said testily.

"Okay. I'm just really confused now," Betty pinched the bridge of her nose, "I don't get it."

"What is there to get, Betty?" Sweet Pea had stood up somewhere in her stumbling explanation and he now paced, "I shouldn't have told you that. I shouldn't have been...I should have told you to go to Arizona."

"On a wild goose chase?" Betty asked, "We might have never found anything. I accepted that a long time ago."

"I am an asshole, though-,"  
"Oh, hell, we're back to this?" Betty threw up her hands.

"-because you should still be in love with Jughead and I've been saying things here and there go get you over him, to make you act like it wasn't all that it was." Sweet Pea finished.

"So you'd rather me be crying and sad and depressed, all over the house? You're angry because I've begun to move on? I didn't think you two were that close!" Even Archie, who was Jughead's best friend, hadn't denied kissing her too much last winter.

"We aren't." Sweet Pea was quick to confirm, "Which is why I've been doing that. And I...on your phone...you really love him."

"Loved, maybe." Betty frowned, "I mean, I love him in the way that I've always loved him, but I don't think I love him anymore, present tense." She tried to connect the dots in her mind. She was an investigator, it shouldn't have been so hard, but the point Sweet Pea was trying to make- his motivations- were still muggy to her.

Looking at her and Jughead on her phone had set Sweet Pea off. He somehow felt guilty for encouraging what Betty felt was inevitable. Maybe even without Sweet Pea, she still didn't think she'd go to Arizona with no leads. Jughead had always been the romantic. It was Betty who had been the one who thought with her mind before her heart. She probably would have gotten over him at the same pace, or she wouldn't have, but she knew that even at this point Betty Cooper wouldn't still have been crying about a boy.

She'd thought about the future with Jughead, sure. The fact it was gone hurt a little, but they also could have naturally broken up in time. From the way Sweet Pea was talking, it was like he thought he'd broken up Romeo and Juliet. As cute as it had been for them to pretend, Betty was a realist. She knew that their love wasn't written in the stars. It was just two teens that were lucky to find each other.

"We fought a lot," Betty said after a quiet second, "The pictures of us? The Instagram posts? The messages? That was just a small part of it. We started out really good, but even then, I threw him that stupid party after he told me not to. And, then we were always hiding things from each other. I think we got back to a good place at the end of it, and I'd rather leave the memories there than that we ended badly, you know? And, up until that last night, there was so much that both of us were trying to juggle that we hardly saw each other anyway." Betty's eyes filled with tears, "It could have gotten bad again. He could have broken up with me, or I with him. This town had too many secrets." She said, referring to Riverdale, which was one of the biggest wedges in their relationship.

"You can't know it would have ended," Sweet Pea said, almost longingly, "That choice was taken."

"I don't know it would have ended good! He basically proposed to me, at sixteen! Neither of us were ready for that." She said, "And then Archie got arrested and we were trying to take down mob bosses and drug dealers and serial killers. That's stuff for adults. We were sixteen." Now, only seventeen and not that much older, Betty admitted that she wasn't any more ready to deal with this, but in an instant, sixteen seemed so young.

"Betts," Sweet Pea said and then frowned, "Betty." He corrected himself. Betty was pretty sure he'd just started calling her 'Betts' to piss off the memory of Jughead.

"You can call me Betts. That's okay." Jughead was hardly the first one to ever give her that nickname, he was just the first to use it so frequently.

"A part of me feels you should just be with him." He mumbled.

"As opposed to?" Betty asked, "Sweet Pea, do you…?" She trailed off, looking down. It was to hide the redness creeping up her neck, the heat over her whole body. She hadn't known he'd looked at her like that, she'd thought she had been alone in her fantasies.

He took a step to her, sighing. His fingers traced over her jawline and he gave a sad smile.

"Goodnight, Betty." In his answer, it said what he left unsaid. But, at the door to upstairs, he paused, looking back, "He really loves you, too." He added, so quietly she almost didn't hear.

"Loves, as in present." Betty murmured, "What does your gut say. You still think he's alive?"

"Does it matter? You don't believe in that to begin with." He asked, and then, more forcefully, "Does that make a difference?" Betty opened her mouth, struggling for a reply. What would be better to hear? What would be worse? Sweet Pea never gave her a chance to answer and exited, leaving her panting and angry and sad all at the same time. She wanted to run after him, follow him. But she couldn't. Betty didn't push it, not tonight. She let him walk away. Where would he go anyway?

He didn't return back to their bedroom that night either. As Betty contemplated it all, and the fact that she knew Sweet Pea was attracted to her in some way but had this sense of morality all of a sudden and guilt about Jughead that kept him away. She thought about how this had been their first huge fight too. She thought about how it didn't feel real with anyone, any sort of relationship, until you had a fight with them that mattered. You didn't get this angry with acquaintances, you didn't use words to hurt casual Facebook friends, and you didn't get so heated over a kid who served you ice-cream once. No; the fact they'd fought confirmed a line that they'd crossed without even knowing it.

_August 21st, 2018_

Betty does not push the issue. By morning she has worked this through her mind so many ways, so many times, that he is sure of her thoughts. There is one very big truth that she cannot go without acknowledging; she cannot lose Sweet Pea, and right now having him is more important than her own childish crush.

Had this world not been how it was, had it been normal, Betty would have never stopped until she got a better answer. If her and Jughead had broken up again, and this time it really was forever, and Sweet Pea had happened to start hanging around her at Riverdale, her reaction would have been different. Or, more aptly, if breaking up with Jughead wouldn't have been her choice and he had been forced to move back with his mom and Jellybean and Sweet Pea was having these same weird feelings holding him back, Betty would still have not accepted the wall he was putting between them. Betty would have gone and kissed him and not let him say no.

But this was a different world now, and the truth of the matter was, Sweet Pea was the most important person in her life. She could not jeopardize that.

He wasn't just a friend, as Archie had been. He was more than a best friend, like Veronica had been. At this moment in time, he was even greater than a lover, like Jughead had been. Sweet Pea was her _partner_ and Betty longed for a dictionary to find a more apt word. Currently, she wouldn't have been able to find a singular term to describe him, but here it was. They were each other's protectors, confidants, companions, and sanity. Maybe the word to best describe him would have been to say that he was her family.

Yes, that was it, he was her family now. Frankly, the only family either of them had left. Alice Cooper was plucky, so Betty wasn't discounting that she might be kicking around somewhere. She's not sure about Polly, because having two babies changes things. She hopes her father is dead, but honestly, a psychopath like him is probably handling things just peachy. So, the might still be alive, but none of them are here. It's only those here that matter anymore. In this world, worry for people you cannot know are out there is wasteful. There are so many more present, more tangible things to be worrying about. In truth, she cannot even give worry to Jughead, if he is alive. She can just hope for the best and that's about it. And, since she still firmly thinks he's dead, the best is that he died fast and that his family do not hurt too bad.

A long time ago, when she was 14, her mother had told her that you can choose your family too, not just your friends. At 14, this had greatly confused Betty, because no one had asked her if she wanted Polly as a sister or her overbearing mother as her mother. The only thing Betty could think of is that it was a subtle way of her mother reminding her to choose her future husband wisely, since they became your family one day.

Now, Betty was sure she was talking about the Serpents, perhaps feeling regretful. It was true; you made your own family. You might share blood with certain people, but that did not mean that they were your family, not if you didn't want them to be.

Betty wished she could explain to Sweet Pea that she'd chosen him many times over in the past few months, enough so he shouldn't be so self-conscious.

If she was thinking back on it, there were three marked times in which Betty Cooper choose Sweet Pea over all others. The first; that day when they exited the Lodge apartments after being trapped there. Betty could have gone one way, him the other.

The second (and, in Betty's opinion, the most important of times) when she choose to stay with Sweet Pea instead of going with Toni, Cheryl, Chuck, and Ethel to New York. She choose a grouchy serpent over her own cousin. That was the day she cleaved away the ties of bound family and really made the distinction that held true today.

The last; when she choose anywhere but Arizona, when she let Sweet Pea choose to.

But, she also knows Sweet Pea enough that if she tries to fix this all right away, he'll just push her away stronger than before. So, she lets him be for about three days. For three days they pass around each other like ships in the night. Sweet Pea throws himself into tilling and planting and gardening and spends longer hours than before out there. Betty really hunkers down and tries to figure out how to get electricity because it's not too much longer until winter and they need it, along with heat too.

When she gets antsy or wants to go and confront Sweet Pea, she goes out and kills walkers from the pits.

Betty's darkness, which shows up even less than it ever has, is still around. It's always going to be around, she's come to terms with. However, darkness in a pretty dark world is turning out to be okay...especially when survival is so based on killing things. She's hesitant to call them people, because they truly aren't. There's no glimmer of humanity or of humane recognition anywhere in their soulless eyes. The spirit that once inhabited them are simply gone. Ghosts in the machine.

It's never been stated between them, but she feels like Sweet Pea leaves the walkers for her to kill on purpose. She thinks half of it is to bolster her own abilities to shove a knife into a skull. She thinks the other part is that it's an effort for her to curb said darkness.

Being able to take her machete and slice down enemies is strangely therapeutic for Betty. Whenever she considers about how fucked up that actually is, she recalls her father was a literal serial killer and she thinks that, actually, she's fairly well-adjusted.

On the third day since their 'big fight', Sweet Pea flops back down on the left side of the bed, as though nothing happened between them. He uses his toes to shuck off his shoes, sighing into the pillow.

"Are...we good Sweets?" Betty almost doesn't want to ask. She does not want to jinx it. Sweet Pea just turns over, smiling quietly at her. She sees that he's managed to fix the dog tags. His fingers rub over the beads, and for a second, there's only silence.

"Yeah," He finally agrees, "We're always going to be good."

It's the acknowledgement that they're likely going to fight again, but it's also a promise...they're not going to leave each other. Betty thinks this is very adult of him (and, technically, he will be soon) and just watches him roll back over. Sweet Pea is asleep in moments.

She can quell her feelings for him, the feelings she's not even sure how to classify, to keep this. Nothing is more important to her.

_September 1st, 2018_

Betty manages to get the heat up and going just before it starts to get a little cold. Not unbearably cold, but chill in the air cold, at least at night. She also manages to hook up some of the solar panels they found and, for the first time in a very long time, the house flickers to life. It's not a long-term solution, but it's a solution for today and that's what really matters. Day by day. Tomorrow, if this all goes to shit again, they've dealt with that once. They'll deal with it again.

"Oh, god. I forgot what AC feels like," Sweet Pea says, sitting right in front of it, "You're amazing, Cooper."

Sweet Pea's farming, however, is not quite as successful. Betty can tell that her and Sweet Pea have one thing in common; no one is a worst critic to them but themselves. Sweet Pea blames himself endlessly and violently for the meanger crops that manage to grow.

Betty tries everything to get him to listen to her, and finally just decides to be firm.

"Look, stop wallowing." She says, and he jolts at her voice, "We got here late. You started planting way after you should have. We know better for next year. First year we were bound to have some rough parts. I mean, we still have cans, so we'll just stock up and use those. We'll hunt too. We'll focus on staring as soon as the snow melts next year and we'll read and get better. You've never planted anything before so," Betty weighs her hands. At least he managed potatoes, which she knows they can store a long while. They have a root cellar.

"Yeah but I-,"

"Not another word!" Betty hopes she looks slightly terrifying when she puts her hands on her hips and scowls. Terrifying enough to make him stop, hopefully.

"But you managed to get the whole house working."

"It's not the whole house. I still have plenty of things to work on, Sweets," Betty rolled her eyes, "Plus...nature is unpredictable. Wiring and electronics are, even if we don't understand them right away." She pointed out, "With enough time, I was always going to get it. Even if you had all summer, the crops still might have sucked, and it wouldn't be your fault at all."

When Sweet Pea didn't respond, just kept his head low, Betty started to leave the room. She did still have other things to work on, like water, especially if they didn't want their pipes to freeze.

As she was leaving, she heard him say, "I just want us to get to next summer."

"I do too," Betty said, "And we will. We'll chart food, be careful, dry meat once we start hunting. Sweet Pea, we will survive."

At Sweet Pea's still darkened mood, Betty glances around their main area. Her eyes catch on the patio, something that's used pretty rarely at the moment.

"Sweets, you know what the fall means?" She asks.

"That all my plants will die?" Sweet Pea mutters sourly. If Betty didn't know better, and maybe she doesn't, she'd say that Sweet Pea was actually very attached to his plants in a very paternal sort of way.

"That we can finally use the hot tub."

There's a pause. When Sweet Pea looks up, his face has split into a grin.

_September 15th, 2018_

They can't use the hot tub right away. It's dirty and gross and Betty can't find chlorine anywhere. Plus, to use it at all, that's a bit of energy. Actual literal energy. However, she's willing to use it maybe once to appease Sweet Pea. But they still need chlorine. She adds it to her ever-growing list of things they need to get before winter really hits.

On September 15th (because now she's started to keep track), she declares that maybe it's time that they take a trip into town, something neither has done since arriving here. They've been out, but not very far from their own little space once or twice, but they haven't spent a day gathering supplies since they were road tripping. The day is hot and Betty isn't sure how many more hot days they have, so they should take advantage of a day that is begging to be spent not inside. If this were the normal world again, a day like this was one she might consider playing hooky (but never gain the courage to do) but spend all her time after school laying in her yard and ignoring her school work.

She looks over Swee Pea's leg, and it seems to be healing up nicely. Soon, it will be nearly healed, though she's sure it will still have a scar. It's healed enough so it's no longer a burden and she figures that if he covers it in a plastic bag or something, when they hot tub is cleaned and ready, he can use it.

They take a day to go around the compound and make their lists of what they need to get. It's a little scary, leaving their house. There's the fear that someone else might be here when they get back, but splitting up (Betty staying or Swee Pea staying) is simply not an option. Besides, Betty has gotten into the groove of living here and it might feel strange to go back out into town where things are still destroyed. This house, here, it's easy to act like they're on a vacation where the AC and the water main have burst and it's just them, but it's still all normal. They will, once again, be confronted with the fact that the world has ended out there.

She wonders if there will be others? Other humans?

Betty wonders what would be the worst outcome; to find other humans while they're out, to see signs that other humans were there, or to see no sign of human life at all?

If they find other humans, there's the chance they're not friendly and they end up having to fight not only walkers, but other people. Betty can kill a walker. She can kill a human, if pushed to, but she's not sure she'll like it.

If there were signs of humans that came by before, then it's the crippling reality that Betty and Sweet Pea have missed them, other people who could be helpful or friends or even someone they knew. Or, it means that maybe this group could follow them back to their sanctuary and that's terrifying too.

Finally, if there's no one...or, no signs of humans from a recent point, that means they're really, alone, doesn't it? And, isn't that worst of all?

"No, defiantly if we find others." Sweet Pea doesn't even think about it, when she asks him, "We've been alone for months. We know we're alone. I don't know why that would suddenly freak you out now? And I've done a lot to survive, but having to kill other humans- even if they were shitty people- I dunno...that would just feel, yeah."

Betty sees his point, but disagrees.

On September 16th, they wake at dawn. They've decided to take the U-Haul, because they're hoping to get pretty much everything they'll need for the rest of the winter, conceivably. Neither wants to have to leave again, but no one says it out loud.

"Where is your list, Sweets?" Betty asks when he comes down to the car with just his headphones and iPod.

"Where's yours?" He parrots back.

Betty waves a piece of loose-leaf. Her list is very strictly reasonable things. She can, internally, say that if they have the chance and room they can grab more 'fun' things, but obviously survival is the number one. Sweet Pea snatchces her list away and reads it, humming to himself.

It reads;

_Food_

_Clothes-specifically warm clothes_

_Medicine_

_CVS/Walgreens_

_Books_

_Firewood, pre-chopped, if possible_

_Blankets_

_Restaurants_

_Walking_

_Hospitals_

_Gasoline_

_Chlorine and other Hot Tub items (Bathing suit?)_

_Solar or Wind Powered Generators_

_Candles_

_Batteries_

_Radio_

_Large Bins_

_Sewing machines_

_Salt/Smokehouse_

_Hunting materials_

"Yes, yes, very smart." Sweet Pea says and Betty resists the urge to roll her eyes, "We're going to bring back a whole hospital?" He asks cheekily.

"You know I mean to go through and grab stuff, items, from it. Like, sutures or that staple gun you love so much." Betty says. Sweet Pea shudders as he recalls stapling his skin together.

"Yep," His voice is the most sarcastic he can make it, "Large bins? That's specific."

"Like, just any large bins," Betty makes a hand motion, "For rainwater collection, I mean, even if I get the heat on, it won't be for a lot and we should have a back up. Plus, we can't be going back to the streams, so we might have to bathe in a large bin, and, yeah." Betty explains her thoughts. She doesn't know why. It's not like Sweet Pea's opinion on this list matters. However, Sweet Pea nods thoughtfully.

"And salt? Just vats and vats of salt?"

"I guess I should have marked it, but salt for the winter, to get rid of ice as well as salt for meat. So, yep, basically. Vats and vats of salt," She adds dryly, "And you just decided, what, not take a list?"

"Actually, I have it right here," He shoves up his sleeve to show a list written down his arm with scraggly sharpie, "Paper is a resource that's gonna run out one day, Cooper. I'm actually being smart by doing this."

"Uh-huh, 'crept you can't really read it." Betty grabs his arm, twisting it to read Sweet Pea's handwriting, which isn't usually so horrendous, but then again he's writing a large list onto his flesh with a Expo marker or something. She thinks he just couldn't find paper or forgot to and did this like ten minutes before he came down.

His list is very different.

_Tractor (GAS!)_

_Cow/goat/dog_

_Seeds_

_Booze_

_Guns_

_Arrows_

_Traps_

_Cans_

_Farms_

_Money_

_Boat_

_Glow sticks_

_Fish_

_Exercises stuff_

_Board games for when we're bored af_

_Apple Store (But I'd settle for a record/CD store)_

_Banjo_

_Grain crusher_

"Yeah," Betty snorts, "I have, well, a few questions about yours. Lemme just...let's just go through it one by one." She feels like his needs some explaining, "First, you want to get a whole tractor?"

"It would make planting a whole lot easier," Sweet Pea says.

"And, cows? Goat? Dog?" Betty scrutinizes him.

"If we want milk or cheese ever again, we gotta find a cow or a goat. I mean, if any are still alive, we gotta get 'em now, or else we won't have them. And I think a dog would be cool, you know? We can train it to be a guard dog."

"Sweets, we can barely survive ourselves and you want to add another animal to that?"

"A useful animal. Maybe a chicken…" Sweet Pea grabs a marker from his pocket, uses his teeth to uncork it, and scrawls 'chicken' as an addon to his list.

"Booze, I guess that doesn't need explaining, but I don't think that's totally needed...um, cans?"

"Like cans to make walker alerts. I guess with food, that solves that."

"Right. The money? Rob a bank, you're saying?"

Sweet Pea shrugs, "If we both think the world is going to fix itself one day, which, let's say we do, I want to be properly prepared. Plus, no one's gonna know it was us. If not, maybe I just want to know what it feels like to hold like a million bucks in my fingers."

Betty decides to just let that all go, there's still more concerning or confusing things to get through, and the day is waiting.

"Boat? For that tiny lake?" She points to the lake on their property, clearly a man-made one.

"That sorta goes with fish. We get some fish so that by next year, they've populated and all and we can catch them every so often. I guess we don't neeeed a boat."

"No, not really."

"Fine," Sweet Pea mumbles and uses the marker to cross it off. He keeps 'fish', however. It's not a bad idea, Betty just thinks any fish that survived are long dead, since no one's been around to feed them. This means they might have to go fishing...somewhere.

She figures glow sticks aren't the worst investment, since it's light whenever you need it and exercise stuff makes since too, because they'll be holes up all winter and need to stay as fit as possible to fight walkers.

"Last one...erm, do you possibly mean, a mill?" She says, pointing to the last thing on his arm.

"Yeah! That's the word. You done grilling me? Oh! Do we have a grill? We should get a grill." Sweet Pea says and Betty just sighs.

* * *

****

**A reweiver, Serptent818 asked frankly what it's like to live in cold ass states. Since Betty and Sweet Pea are now living in one of these states, I actually thought it might be interesting for everyone if you live somewhere warm. However, feel free to also skip because it will be long! So long that it didn't fit in the actual end notes..**

***So, I've lived in Wisconsin most of my life, so like, I'm talking on good authority. Wisconsin in particular is crazy because we can go through all four season in one week. It's normal for the weather to drop or rise 40 degrees in one night. In other places, like Cali, where my bro lives, he talks about how it basically stays within a 20 degree window. Lol not here. You have to be prepared for literally anything.**

***In the summer, it gets up to 80s and sometimes 90s. In the fall, it's rainy and usually 50's. In spring, 40s. In Winter...well, average, around 20-30, but it can get very, very, very cold. I'm talking -30 with windchill. That's not usually till Jan tho. Dec is usually pretty mild and not very snowy and then it's 'winter' from Dec-April. It even once snowed at the May Graduation at my college. It was a miserable commencement ceremony, from what I've heard of it.**

***We don't get a TON of snow (at least, not by most midwestern standards). We'll get two or three big dumps, but more than that, it just gets COLD. I remember my senior year, we had five days of school cancelled because it was legit too cold for the busses to run. It was -45 for nearly two weeks straight. But, when it gets cold is totally a shot in the dark. Sometimes, it's cold and snowy by Halloween, other times it's warm enough to wear sexy skimpy outfits.**

***Wisconsin is mostly farmland. There are about five 'major' cities, but if you get outside of any of those five mins, it's literally cows and corn. Because of that, in my childhood town, there were kids that lived up to an hour away and just drove in everyday (we actually had to ban tractors from parking in our parking lot, since kids sometimes drove tractors to school. Fall harvest is still totally a thing that kids are pulled out of school for) and the rule is, that if your county cancells school because the roads aren't plowed, you aren't required to come into your high school. So, this one kid who lived out on a farm, was snowed into his area for about a month. It was fun, until it wasn't. He literally started Skyping into classes.**

***You pretty much have to have clothes for all occasions, but specifically warm things. If I get sweaters from anyone, I'm happy. The BEST Christmas gift I ever received was a stadium jacket that goes down past my knees, becuase I get so much use out of it. It's for nearly negative 30 below weather. But, because we get so cold here, like people will not put on coats/winter clothes until the last second. My brother says it's so weird in Cali because people will put a jacket on if it goes below 50. Most Wisconsinites wouldn't even think to put a jacket on until about 30. I mean, I'll literally look at the weather and unless it's 32, I usually don't bother with my super warm jacket. You'll have kids wearing shorts in 32 degree weather and it's just like 'yep, normal'. I had a roommate from Connecticut and our first semester in college, it got to around 20 degrees and she was like 'Lexie, you're right, it DOES get cold here' and I was just like 'Oh...oh honey...it's not even that bad yet...this is nice weather...'**

***All kids learn how to drive (usually illegally by like 14) and everyone knows how to drive in snow. It could be blizzarding and we'd probably still be out there. It takes a lot more than that to stop us**

***NEARLY EVERYONE IS A HUNTER. My fam is the odd family out because we just don't hunt. But I swear to god it's a religion here. My old HS, which was super preppy btw, cancelled school on Open Season starter days because they knew MOST of the school would skip anyway. And, a lot of people actually sustain themselves on what they catch and eat. I mean, in general, we don't have a ton of vegans/vegetarians here. Meat is a big part of our culture because for more than half the year THINGS DONT GROW**

***When it is warm here, it's humid as hell. Mosquitos are awful.**

***Everyone has a cabin or knows someone that has a cabin 'up nort'. Some Wisconsinites have a 'Youper' accent which sounds vaguely Canadian. We have something called the Wisconsin 'Ope' which is this little exclamation we make when you like have to pass by someone or bump into someone. It replaces sorry, but can be used for just about anything else, and we'll know what you mean.**

***There's almost nothing to do in a lot of the smaller cities, especially because it's cold all the time. So, in High School, the things to do was to go to the movies or wander around the malll...or drink. There's a reason why Wisconsin has 8/10 of the drunkest cities in America...We specifically like our beer here**

***You just get used to the cold. I literally can wake up for college classes, look at the weather, go 'huh...it's -35 degrees...guess it's time to walk to class!' and you just do it. I don't think my college has ever cancelled classes school wide. I did have a professor that didn't count you for attendance unless you walked in wearing a coat, gloves, and a scarf because it's just stupid to not wear those around**

*** A lot of people around here are survivalists just because, well, a lot of living here is basic survival. The hunting. Knowing how to work a generator or solar panels or wind turbines or what have you. I know the basics of wilderness survival and I hate camping as it is. We also all have a love for board games, for when the power or internet goes out. Internet up in the woods as it is is usually spotty at best.**

***We really do love cheese and milk as much as you all say we do. It's good af here though, and so cheap. We have something here called Cheese Curds which are little pieces of cheese either deep fried (omg so good) or we have fresh cheese curds, which are the curds left over and they're fresh and squeak when you chew them and it's utterly delightful. You can only get good cheese curds in Wisconsin, so if you get it anywhere else, it's a fake.**

***I said Hunting is a religion? I take that back. Packer fans are. I grew up in Green Bay, so it was like...a sin not to like the Packers. I mean, we as a town collectivly own them, so it's pretty cool. I even own a part of the Packers. And all the players are just so NICE and down to earth, really. But on a Packer's home game, Green Bay is DEAD. It's the best time to do anything because no one is around. And it's a thing to go to a Packer's game in -below weather. You're not a true fan unless you've done it once. You drink a lot of beer to stay warm.**

***The sun sets super early and rises sorta late. My dad goes to work before it rises and comes home after it sets (around 5pm) so we spend most of our time in just darkness. Because of this, depression is super prevalent. It's so easy to just feel like doing nothing. SAD is no joke, y'all. I don't mind it, but it gets into a lot of people's heads really easily.**

***Finally, you can take us out of the cold, but it's in our blood now. My family took a summer vacation to Alaska (see) and we took a tour on a glacier and guess what? We found people from Green Bay working up on a literal sheet of ice. Just goes to show XD**

**Hope those answered your questions in general! It was super fun to write out!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple noooootessss
> 
> -I meant to update this chapter on Dec 6th but got totally overwhelmed with school. Why you ask? That's actually the day that the episode with Betty's Serpent Dance aired. That's the day that I, and I think many of us, became Sweet Betts shippers, due to his face during it...never have I ever been able to poinpoint the day one of my obsessions started... I say we should make Dec 6th SweetBetts Ship Day! Who's with me?
> 
> -When I actually went and researched how long Betty was actually with Jug...it really wasn't that long for them to be making all those declarations. I mean, it feels longer cuz it's over two seasons, but the entirety of s1 took place in like two months, did you guys know? So, yep...
> 
> -I always feel like the first fight between a couple is a HUGE deal, which is why I showed it...plus I love me some good ole angst
> 
> -So, sorta a note, when I also wrote this (or, the fight, since I wrote the fight way before I wrote anything else) S3 hadn't aired. At the end of s2, and for most of s2, Bughead was sorta rocky. S3 they have been markedly better and I enjoy them more again.
> 
> -For some bizarre reason I cannot explain, I totally thought Jellybean and Gladys were in Arizona? Like legit? I'm not sure where that came from...
> 
> -The rating for this fic will change. I wasn't sure about it before, but out of the blue I had the urge to write some good old SweetBetts smut, so I did. It's far away from now, but be aware that the rating will be changing for sexy times!


	10. Track 9: I Will Follow You Into the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for this Chapter is 'I'll Follow You Into the Dark' by Death Cab for Cutie, although there's a cover by The Running Mates that I just adore, so I'd encourage you to check that out too!

_September 16th, 2018_

The drive into town doesn't take too long, or not as long as Betty anticipated. If she had Google Maps still working, she could have known exactly how long, but instead she has Sweet Pea turning the map around to view it from different angles and using a finger to measure the distance, guessing from there.

It's less than half an hour.

"So, this is what the pilgrims felt like, or something."

"Or our parents," Betty says, neatly folding the map back into the glove box, since they figure out it's pretty much a straight shoot to Niagara, WI. For as good as Sweets is with that map, left to his own devices, he'd shove it away crinkled and hastily. This is the best map they have. They aren't in a position to be tearing it any time soon, even if they have zero plans of leaving their safe haven in any near future.

At the fork, right after exiting the back county road that led them here, Sweet Pea jumps out and scouts left and right.

"Left; town. Right; suburbs," he says once he jumps back in, "So?"

Betty gnaws on her lip.

"What are you doing?"

"Weighing the pros and cons in my mind," she snips back, a little grumpy about his interruption.

Okay, where was she?

If they go to the suburbs, the pros are is that it's less likely to have been pre-picked through. Plus, as they've established, people here keep continually surprising and helpful things.

Cons; they can't possibly know what a house has (if anything at all) until going through it. It will take time. More chances to run into walkers or people still surviving. Lastly, it feels strange to pick through someone's dead life, to nod to Carol in a picture who was a waitress as she carried the late owner's valuables out into her own car. It feels...slimy.

And, despite Sweet Pea's strange list, combined with her own, they do have objectives.

"Town," She says, but is already turning left.

"Who are you using the blinker for?" Sweet Pea scoffs.

"Just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean I'll act like some sort of animal who doesn't use common road courtesies." Betty replies, but it's more of habit than anything else.

The first place they come across is an animal hospital. The car idles as Betty draws up to it, tapping her fingers on the dash.

"It probably has medical stuff," She whispers, but makes no move to leave the car.

She's been seeing dead humans this whole time. Heck, she's been seeing dead humans since before the apocalypse, so that doesn't freak her out. What does make her panic is the idea of seeing all those dead animals in the cages, poor dogs and cats that were left by their owners, that probably died wondering where they went. It actually makes her tear up a bit. Nothing is worse than a dead dog.

"Look, one of us should actually stay with the car. It's pretty open here," Sweet Pea is already adjusting his weapons to maximize effectiveness, "I'll go and be right back."

"No, no," Betty shakes her thoughts away. She appreciates what Sweet Pea is doing, but Betty is stronger than this, "Together. Always."

She turns the car off, hops out of the car and grabs a pillowcase, slinging it over her shoulder like a rag, "Coming?"

Sweet Pea offers her a watery smile before grabbing his own Transformers pillow case to loot the office.

The door has been barricaded. It takes Sweet Pea and Betty's combined efforts to open it; Betty managing to unscrew the door handle right off and Sweet Pea slamming his body agains the door until it budged.

One step in and Betty is overwhelmed with the stench of death and decay. It's a smell she's been able to put out of her mind for weeks now, but one that reminds her of the ruins of Riverdale. She slaps both palms over her nose and mouth, making a disgusted noise while trying not to inhale.

Sweet Pea gags a little bit, before reaching into his back pocket and pulls out two bandanas. He hands one to Betty, who just stares dumbly at it for a second, watching as he ties his own around his head and pulls it up right below his eyes.

She gets the reasons. Sometimes, Sweet Pea thinks ahead. Sometimes, the Serpent can be smart.

"They tried to hide out," Sweet Pea says, kicking aside a couple boxes from the doors, before opening one to see just stacks of papers and binders.

It wouldn't have mattered, the walkers had found their way inside.

There are three to kill and none of them even get a chance to try to attack the pair.

They look well fed. Since there's few hints of other humans besides the three, it draws Betty to a conclusion that makes her stomach lurch. The door to the cages where they kept the animals is partially open and the floor is covered in blood. Betty thinks of Vegas. It's been a long time since she thought of the Andrew's sweet dog with his chocolate eyes. She remembers playing with him in the yard as a very young girl, begging her own father for a dog of her own. She knows there's no possible way that Vegas would be in that room, but the thought of all the pets and owners forever separated breaks her and-

"There's likely nothing good in there," Sweet Pea's hand leads her to the offices and break room. She glances up, blinking. Sweet Pea's body is shielding her from that door, from that room. It's not a brotherly sort of way either, but it's sort of similar to the way that Jughead had protected her, but still, entirely different.

"What do we take?" Sweet Pea asks once they enter the first office.

Betty spies a bottle of hand sanitizer and can't help but squirt some on her hands before clunking it into the bottom of her bag.

"Everything."

They fill their pillowcases three times over.

Betty selfishly shovels all items into her bag, not taking time to read through bottles or consider that others may try to come here later. It's the end of the world and Betty wants to live. Sure, horse tranquilizers might not seem like something useful right now, but she doesn't want to rule out the possibility that they'll find something for it eventually.

Continuing up the road, they both make the choice not to check out the Child Care facility. They offer up meager jokes but they both know the choice is similar to ignoring a certain room in the Vet clinic.

The Bank on the next street has far better prospects.

And then, after that, it's just a matter of getting into a rhythm. Not every location is as pristine as the Vet's office, as to say that no one had bothered here before. In fact, most places have been picked over at least once, if not more times. However, from the dust collecting on shelves, the last looters weren't recent.

Sometimes they nearly strike out and only find a Snickers, a box of paper clips, and three bullets (along with a whole bunch of other random things Betty insists they take, because she is going to be prepared from here on out) and sometimes they take multiple trips to and from their van.

Sheriff's office, Police Station, local dive bar- actually, multiple bars and liquor stores ("I heard once Wisconsin had eight of the top ten drunkest cities in the US," Sweet Pea says with a gleam in his eyes that is undeniable), gas station, hair salon, auto shop, a smattering of grocery stores, post office, a school or two, some offices of small businesses...basically, they're not picky about it.

The Library turns out to be, very unexpectedly, one of the best locations.

"We have a whole winter to sit inside bored," Betty says, trailing her fingers along the spines, "Think we have enough room in the truck to take the entire lot?"

It's a small town library, but not minuscule. She knows they can't, but Betty is going to try.

"I wish," Sweet Pea snorts, "Idiots." He's lingering overly by the non-fiction instructionals. Sure, a book on how to can food isn't xactly food to can, but it's information, which is surely worth its weight in gold by this point. They mutually agree on the space in the van they'll give books, which is far more generous than one may think, but winter can be a very, very long time.

They start with the non-fiction instruction books. Load up every single one that seems applicable.

Then, they give each other free reign of the library to loot to their heart's content.

It's sort of like a dream come true to Betty. She used to go to Riverdale's library and check out the max allotted books at one time as a child, read them with a fevor, and then do it all again the next week.

She, methodical as always, starts by making piles. Piles of the books she most wants to take, and so on, so that she doesn't miss any novel she's been dying to read. Betty has no qualms switching between genres. Autobiography, comedy, art, fiction romance, historical, thriller- Betty is a connoisseur of anything with text and decides to give herself a wide variety to pick from in the coming months ahead.

"Lordy, hallelujah, we're saved," Sweet Pea says, throwing down some battered CDs at her feet. It's a strange mix of pre-iPod favorites, such as 'That's What I Call Music 6' or a Fall Out Boy disc, but it's something, "No more weird Christian rock. They also have DVD's."

By the time they've decided to break for lunch, sitting on the top of their van and eating a box of stale Ritz with peanut butter, they've cleared out nearly all of the DVD's and CD's, as well as what might be a fourth of the library.

"We should find hobbies, for winter." Betty licks the crumbs from her fingers, "Things so we don't go cabin crazy."

"Redrum." Sweet Pea says in a creepy low voice.

"What?" Betty says, snorting, giving him a confused look.

"I'm agreeing," Sweet Pea says, "Redrum?  _The Shining_?" At Betty's vacant gaze, he chokes on his laughter, "Oh, seriously? Jughead never showed you it? He's the type I woulda swore would love that sort of shit."

"I mean, I've heard of it…"

"Luckily for you, we have a copy, thanks to the Niagara Public Library. That movie night will be awesome," Sweet Pea says in a decisive tone.

By mid-day they've picked over the entirely of the town without breaching private homes. It's smaller than Riverdale, and Betty had truly thought no town was more pitiful than theirs. At least theirs had a 7-11, whereas the only gas station here was a strange non-branded one.

"No use going home this early," Sweet Pea says decisively.

It's sweltering. It's at least 80, and combined with the manual labor of lugging items (some, probably heavier than Betty herself) into their truck has made both of them very sweaty. Betty is in just a tank and a pair of shorts, along with ensemble shoes. Her Serpent Jacket is on the driver's seat, but it seems ridiculous to try to wear it. Sweet Pea had been wearing his, but had gotten overheated, which had caused him to not only take off his jacket, but also his flannel, leaving just an undershirt.

She's seen him with less on, but something about the combination of scuffed jeans and a simple white T is driving her mad.

She's happy they have a purpose, a goal here.

Sweet Pea slaps the map against the side of the van.

"So, across state lines is another town, uh, Quinnesec. However, it looks like it's just houses, not much for things. However, up and west, across the border, is Kingsford and Iron Mountain and these look much more promising."

"Well, there it is, then." Betty says, giving a pair of thumbs up.

They're nearly out of town, "Wait!" Sweet Pea yells, causing Betty to slam on the breaks.

"What?" Her voice is frantic.

"We might not come back through town this way. We should...you know, spray paint," He makes an accompanying little 'pfft' sound with it.

"Oh," Betty runs her hands down her face, "Yeah, yep." For people to find them, if anyone they know is still alive.

They go to the center of town, the grocery store. Sweet Pea throws the green spray paint between his palms. They'd always just written, 'Jughead/Betty/Sweet Pea' with some other words in a combination, or 'Sweet Pea and Betty passed here' of more recent times, but this felt different.

"We're here, by all means," Sweet Pea explains out loud exactly what Betty's thinking, "It's not a stop, it's the destination."

The stone wall is large, which is a good thing. Betty swipes the can from his hand, standing back.

The first thing she writes is 'Sweet Pea and Betty' and nothing else. Then, she goes into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. It's even laminated with clear duct tape, so not to be ruined.

Even if she nearly forgot while leaving, it's a thought that she didn't forget about at home.

"Directions, so they can find us."

"We can't just write it up there, all sorts of crazies will come knocking," Sweet Pea sends her a horrified look.

"I'm not saying that!" Betty rolls her eyes, "We'll hide it somewhere."

She adds onto the message, 'if you want to find us…', then pauses.

A giggle erupts from. her lips, "I'm going to make it a cipher."

"A what?"

"Like, you know, National Treasure, where the words are all different letters? It's very Nancy Drew." She explains, smiling as she recalls fondly all the letter she'd sent to Polly. At Sweet Pea's still confused expression, she runs through it quickly.

"It will need a keyword to alert the person to which letter they should start with to decode it."

"Riverdale, I'd say. A level of security."

He grabs the can back. He writes as neatly as he can near the side of the message, 'Keyword; the town we're from'. Because, logic stands, that anyone who they want to see would know that answer.

Betty sits down and using a pen and the back of one of the cereal boxes they'd packed away starts to write it.

"You know?" Sweet Pea says, just as she's nearly done switching 'look in the loose brick for instructions' to code, "Someone if they really were adamant about finding us that we don't know could theoretically crack the code without the keyword, if they were super dedicated."

"You're right," Betty sticks the pen in her ponytail.

"Easy fix. We put another layer, another security question, so that only the people we want finding it do." Sweet Pea says. He roots through the front of the van and finds a sharpie. His eyes scan the entry to the supermarket, and Betty can see the thoughts in his brain.

He goes over to the rack of newspaper stands, and very carefully draws a maple leaf, but makes it look like someone didn't just draw it on, but lets the half-torn stickers overlap it and scuffs it up.

"Maybe have it say something like…map to us hidden with Cheryl. So, they won't know it's in a box, they'll think it's a person. But, you get it Cheryl and the Maple Syrup and a maple leaf-,"

"It's brilliant, Sweet Pea!" Betty breathes, nodding, "And you used the sharpie so they didn't just look for the green spray paint, which would have been a huge giveaway. You're brilliant." She amends her thought because she thinks he should hear it more often.

Sweet Pea's whole face is red, "On occasion, I have the intelligent thought."

After all it's said and done, the note (not counting the cipher key at the bottom) says 'Sweet Pea and Betty. If you want to find us...Jrn sm tq bceedk wcsb Vbdpyh.'

And then, they tape the map to the top of the metal box, folded really small, and get back in their car.

"Think anyone will ever find it?" Betty asks. She's filled with visions of Archie or her mom or Moose stumbling upon them.

"I'd like to hope," Sweet Pea replies honestly, "But, at the same time, I don't mind just us."

"Me either."

She knows it's not how it sounds like. Still, the admission sends a tingle down her spine.

XXxxXX

There's two hospitals on their way in, which is a big improvement to what they'd found. It bodes well for the remainder of their day. They agree to stop here last, on their way back out.

Sweet Pea was a good judge; between these two towns, there are many more modern or names of store that Betty is familiar with.

There's a strip mall right near a hospital, with a supermarket, a couple clothing stores, a McDonalds, and two pharmacies all within close range.

In the clothing store, they stock up on winter gear. Betty swipes a coat from a hanger that makes her cough at the price, until she remembers she can take anything she wants here and folds it up for later. She also takes all of the underwear and bras because these are things that aren't remembered, often, but are vitally important. At least, to her.

The pharmacies are mostly empty, to be expected. However, in the town one, they find a small haul. In the Walgreens, they split up.

For this, Betty is thankful.

She goes to the women's section first, very much looking to empty the area of any pads and tampons, because her monthly unwelcome visitor, albeit more spotty of late, isn't going to stop just because it's the apocalypse.

As she's going down the aisle, she hits the 'Family Planning' section.

She spots Sweet Pea's head a couple isles down. Furtively, she looks back up at the array of condoms and morning after pills.

Her arms are swiping across the shelf and grabbing off the hooks before she thinks hard about it.

"It's for later. I mean, if others show up," Betty whispers to herself.

 _Keep telling yourself that, sister_. The sneering voice in her mind sounds a lot like Dark Betty.

Betty locks her jaw, continuing to take medicine and fleece-lined leggings and maybe some makeup, just for fun.

"You good?" Sweet Pea asks, kicking her bag lightly, "You get what you needed to get?"

"Yeah. I think we can move on," Betty says.

She for sure makes sure that she's the one to empty the pillowcases into some of the plastic bins they found, and not Sweet Pea, and she for sure stuffs the condoms and morning after pills in a ball of shirts.

Sweet Pea is outside the truck, just looking out at the town. The way the light is hitting his profile, the casualness of his stance...Betty swallows. She feels butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

One of the condom boxes slips to the floor.

As Betty picks it up, her gaze still on Sweet Pea, she can't help but have that association. The next thing she knows, her mind is overrun with the thought of both of them naked.

 _You wish_ , Dark Mind Betty scoffs.

"Yeah," Betty mutters to herself, "I do."

XXxxXX

By the time they turn back for the hospitals, Betty is satisfied. She feels like they don't even have to bother with personal houses this time, because their haul is so good. They have a lot of things clanking around in the back.

No, not clanking. They've filled this baby up nearly to the brim.

"I'm taking up knitting," Betty informs Sweet Pea, "Among others." She found a small knitting corner store and took a lot of yarn. It's a sensible hobby.

She has some more non-sensible ones. There was a generic art store next to the yarn store and she's always wanted to be a better painter. She's bound determined to learn at least one language fluidly, and picked up a Rosetta Stone set at the library. There's a couple other things too.

She has all the time in the world.

"What about you?" She asks.

"Planting. Working my green thumb. Going to try to grow some stuff inside, and we'll also have things like tomatoes or what have you in mid-winter. Also, music."

"What about music? Listen to every bad album we got?" Betty asks.

"For as much as I enjoy music, frankly love it, I can't play any instruments. I mean, it was a bougie privileged sort of thing to be able to learn it as a kid, and I was too rough for that, but I've always wanted to try. So, I found a guitar and violin. Keyboard too. If we can spare the energy, it's electric so I have headphones on. Dunno what I'll be good at. Also, thought a trombone or something might be too loud. Still, I doubt grabbing that saxophone or French horn or trombone is a priority to most at the end of the world, so I figure we can always come back."

"I look forward to hearing your concerts," Betty teases.

"By the end of winter, you'll be begging me to stop."

XXxxXX

In the way that it's easy to forget that certain wild animals that have lived with humans their whole lives are still wild animals and terribly dangerous, Betty almost forgot that walkers have killed nearly humanity as she knows it.

Well, she hasn't forgot. But, it's been awhile since they've been a true terror.

Tucked away in their cabin, walkers will on occasion get past their many traps and tangle themselves in their fence. Then, Betty or Sweet Pea will kill it. End of story. It's almost an annoyance rather than a terror. She'll get a little jolt of fear if it snaps too close to her, but in all, they've been unspeakably lucky as to not have to deal with a large number of them for at least a month.

All the stores they've been in were small enough to only have one walker thumping around, if at all. The sounds of their van have attacked a few groups, but Betty only sees them in the rear view as they drive away, or wait for them to pass.

In general, there wasn't large populations of these towns to cause a herd in the first place.

Or, so she thinks, until they reach the hospital.

Hospital number one is fine. It's actually sort of a bust, but they don't walk away empty handed. It seemed like it wasn't used much pre-walkers, and is the smaller of the locations.

The next hospital, the one on their way back to the cabin, is much bigger.

Betty is using her flashlight to clear through empty boxes in a closet near a nurse's station. She found a pot of very cold coffee, and it tastes a little off, but she's not necessarily complaining. She had put the half-used bag of coffee beans into her bag already.

She has a Fall Out Boy song stuck in her head. The really popular one where she's not sure what words, if any, the lead singer is saying. It sorta sounds like gibberish. It makes it very inconvenient to have it stuck in her head, so she's not exactly 100% in the headspace of survival mode. She's trying to figure out some lyrics, because she thinks maybe if she can identify just one line this dude is saying, she can get it out of her head.

She blames Sweet Pea for putting that album on in the car. She is much too casual right now, as though this is the cabin. She's breaking her own biggest rule; never turn your back, literally and metaphorically.

Sweet Pea skids around the corner.

"Betty," He whispers frantically, grasping her arms.

"Wha-?"

Sweet Pea slaps his hand over her mouth, his eyes wild as he makes a frantic and sharp shake of his head.

She stiffens. She can hear the moaning and thumping of walkers near. If Sweet Pea didn't kill them, that has to mean that there's too many.

If she hadn't been so caught up, she might have heard it or realized the signs or-

Sweet Pea shakes his head again. He puts a finger to his lips, his other palm still over her lips. Betty tries to carefully set her pillowcase on the floor, as not to alert the group to their location. She unsheathes her knife, holding it close to her.

Sweet Pea pulls her down the hall.

She can see the frustration and terror in his shoulders. They are too straight, too locked. There's a quiver, ever so slight, one that tells Betty just how afraid he is.

This, in turn, makes Betty afraid.

He links his fingers in hers, tugging her down the hall. He almost is at the stairwell, before Betty sees another group of them through the door.

"We're trapped," The words escape her as one big rush, uttered in the softest of tones.

Sweet Pea's look is hard to describe. It's angry, it's sadness, it's terror. He looks younger here, younger than he ever has. It does not escape Betty that as he backs them up, he always puts her farthest from the noise.

"In here, quick," Sweet Pea whispers under his breath, opening a door to one of the cabinets of the nurses station. He shoves Betty in first, motioning for her to lie down. It's a little cramped for her, and there's a shelf right above her, so it's very claustrophobic. It's about to get even more so, as Sweet Pea tucks himself inside too, but not before smearing a walker's guts with a hospital gown all over the front of the cabinet.

He closes the door behind them as softly as he can.

"I have a theory that they use smell," He whispers, his breath warm, "And that maybe, if I make our area smell like walker, they'll pass by. Once they move on to the other end of the hall, we run for it." He says.

Betty is about to reply, but the stairwell and doors open and it's just shuffling of the dead feet.

Betty makes a squeaking noise at the sheer amount of them, not meaning to. Sweet Pea instantly tugs her against him, pressing her nose into his shoulder, quieting her.

From this angle now, Betty can see the walkers through the thin slit of the cabinet doors.

She's not sure who's shaking; her or Sweet Pea. Her knife is between them, but at some point, her grip loosens and she puts her arms around his back. They're both shaking, she comes to conclude. There's no way in hell that if the walkers found them they'd be able to fight their way out of this.

He can't see a thing from this angle, not at least out the way they came in. He could have turned around, his back to her face. Or, she could be in front of him, he could have gotten in first.

This is when she realizes that his hold on her is very deliberate.

He is, once again,  _protecting_  her. He'd rather have her curled into his chest and farther from the danger than anything else.

And, well, his hold isn't sexual but it's also not-not sexual.

She's sure that her mind isn't the only mind that always seems to have the dirtiest lyrics on repeat when she's in Church or class, so she's not surprised when her mind jumps—even from the beefiest of seconds- to the way that his front feels molded against her, and how if she tilts her hips forward, she'd be able to feel him, hard or not.

Just as she's contemplating this, a band of walkers come terrifying close to their hiding place.

Sweet Pea must be listening raptly, because he tightens his grip on her. Betty bites into his shoulder to keep from crying out as she sees them approach.

And, that's when it hits her.

She could die like this.

All of their work, all the time they spent, and it could end like this. Others probably came to a similar fate, somewhere.

If the walkers found them, they'd either die from the wounds-going mad at the end- or be descended upon by the hoard and be eaten alive.

It's stupid it takes her this long to realize it. That's the reality of their situation, of this new world. Somehow, she almost let herself believe the world wasn't totally fucked. In their little cabin, she could nearly think that her mom had booked her some weirdo off-the-grid trip in the woods, and she'd go back to the world of Instagram and Facebook soon enough. That there weren't undead cannibals walking the earth. That things were normal.

Nothing was ever going to be normal again.

The smaller group moved on, but they still weren't safe. Betty felt tears spring to her eyes. She had never felt such fear as she did in this moment, not even staring the Black Hood down.

One of Sweet Pea's hands was curled in her hair, and he pulled her closer against him, legs tangling in hers, so there wasn't an inch of space between them. She could hear the frantic beating of his heart, like a hummingbird. Neither of them even dared to breathe louder than normal. If this was it, was she happy with her life? Was she satisfied? Were there things she should have said to others, to Veronica or Archie that night? To Jughead? To her mom, and fucking hell, even her dad? Was there something left unsaid between her and Sweet Pea that- if she was ever going to say them- now would just about be the opportune time?

It seems endless. Limitless. It seems like there's too much to say to him, no possible way to thank him for saving her and staying with her. For being a friend. For being her partner. She doesn't have the time and it kills her, because they had days and days of silence at the safety of the cabin, where she didn't imagine having to say these things to him, at least not now. She thought they'd have time, the long winter, to sort it out. She wishes she could go back to the Betty that was working on the heater even three days ago and shake her, and tell her that she should tell him.

There's a sentiment that, if she's going to start, seems like a good place to do just so. It's quietly intimate, as she considers the words in her head, in the sort of way that if he doesn't feel the same way, it will be easy to brush it aside as friendly goodbyes. However, if he did feel as she did…

She inhales first, as though preparing herself. Then, she speaks.

"If we go, I'm glad I'm not alone," Betty said, her voice a hair above silent air. She was inches from his ear, so he heard. She waits, giving him the moment to reply, so that she knows how to go from here, knows where he stands.

"Betty," She couldn't see his face, but his voice was rough, "I…" For a moment, it seemed like he was going to say more. It's hard to see him, there's only a small amount of light casting into their cabinet, but Sweet Pea looks more unsure of himself than he ever has. Then, he quieted. Betty strained, begging for him to continue. The next action he took was abrupt.

"Go, go!" He was shoving her out of the cabinet. Betty skidded onto the floor in a daze, before Sweet Pea was grabbing her up, "Run!" He said in a whisper-yell.

Betty didn't need to be told twice. The pair booked it down the other end of stairs, dodging a few strangler walkers. Betty didn't even bother going for her pillowcase. She didn't even catch her breath, not truly, for a long time. Not in the car, not out of the city, not even when they were back in their driveway. It wasn't until they were inside, door locked, that they collapsed into each other.

Betty tried to hold back her hiccuping sobs, but failed miserably.

"Hey, hey," Sweet Pea said, but he was still shaking all over, "We're  _home_. We're safe now."

"I never want to leave again," Betty croaked.

"Yeah, me either," Sweet Pea said, "That was a close one."

Not much else needed to be said on the topic.

As Sweet Pea continued to rub soft circles on her back, Betty just replayed a mantra in her mind.

_We're safe, we're safe, we're safe…._

Not unexpectedly, it didn't really feel like it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things couldn't be too comfortable forever, right ;)
> 
> I spent WAY more time than probably normal creeping on the Google Maps of Niagara WI and looking up shops and stuff, as well as trying to get layouts XD I mean, I know this is a zombie story, but I still wanted to be realistic!
> 
> But damn how do you all like that UST?
> 
> Sorta just a reminder, even though we're only getting Betty's POV on stuff, remember that Sweet Pea is making this apocalypse playlist that is the song titles, so HE picked out 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark'...take that how you will!
> 
> I think you all will very much enjoy the next chapter I have planned. Won't say much more than that, other than reviews will make me update much faster!


	11. Track 10: Dancing Queen (Vaporwave Remix)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEHEHEHE THIS CHAPTER YA'LL! THIS CHAPTER :)

_ September 16th, 2018 _

They crawl into bed not long after, but it should have been clear from the start that neither were calm enough to sleep. Too keyed up. Betty still has her jeans from the day on, instead of PJs, a hallmark of unease that hasn’t been used since they found this haven. She knows a walker has never gotten inside, but the idea that one might, and the stench of the hoard from the hospital every time she closes her eyes…

She swallows hard. 

Sweet Pea is even more on edge. He still has his shoes on. Betty would bitch him out about it, but tonight, maybe they all need this. She can wash sheets. She can’t put a price on the feeling of safety. 

They lie there in the dark silence for what feels like hours, Betty staring at the ceiling. 

“You awake?” She finally asks. 

“Yeah. Haven’t even gotten a minute.” He groans, pressing his palms to his sockets. 

It’s not like they have a full day ahead of them tomorrow. Most pressing task is to unload the food from the van. Heck, the books could sit there nearly until winter for all they care. 

“Let’s face it. Neither of us is sleeping,” Betty flops onto her side, staring at him. Or, his figure, since it’s very dark.

“We could take shifts, like before,” Sweet Pea whispers. 

“Or, we could accept it and pull an all-nighter. Sooner or later we’ll be tired enough, and then we’ll sleep then.” Betty argues, standing up, having already made the choice. She pats her pockets as she fishes for a flashlight. 

She chuckles. 

“What?” Sweet Pea asks. 

“I have the lists,” Betty says, pulling out the papers with a crinkle, “That we made. Wish Lists, more or less. Not like it’s before, when we could just pull up to a Target and hit every item. Maybe one would be sold out, if we were unlucky. In mean, in Riverdale, Mason Jars and fruit was always sold out it seemed,” She muses, setting the flash light between them. There is, definitively, a space that lies between Sweet Pea and Betty that hasn’t really been touched. It’s a King bed, more than enough space for Betty to stay on her side and Sweet Pea on his. Tonight, Betty thinks ‘fuck it’ with the gap. 

A part of her just doesn’t want to feel alone tonight. 

She holds the flashlight in her lips as she settles herself right onto that dead zone on the bed. She grabs her favorite pillow and fluffs it, laying it right touching Sweet Pea’s pillow. There’s maybe six inches between the pair of them. It still feels like too little, but she’s not about to jump his bones, she just wants to be near him. 

Using the small light, she unfolds her own list first. 

“We’ll have to do a proper look tomorrow or in this next week, but we sorta know what we grabbed, and more specifically, what we didn’t find.” She says. She pulls a red felt-tip marker from her nightstand, and together then begin to comb through the list. 

They didn’t get a lot of things associated with farms, since they didn’t hit up a farm. The question lies between them (Should they go back out again?), but both aren’t too keen on leaving again, not without a very good, possibly life-or-death reason. 

Firewood is something they can do themselves. It will take work, but they’re in a forest. They have trees upon trees at their fingertips. 

They didn’t find a sewing machine, but they do have needles and thread. Betty can’t recall how much salt they find. That will change what they can do with certain things, namely the smokehouse. 

“Real talk, though. Did we get chlorine?” Sweet Pea says. Just like that, their anxiety starts to melt away. Betty can literally feel her shoulders unlock. 

“Yes, yeah. I found some gallons in the Vet’s.” Betty confirmed. 

“Hot tub?” Sweet Pea asks helpfully. 

“After the day we’ve had, I feel like the answer has to be yes. Eventually.” She adds, “It’s still hot out. Who wants to go in a hot hot tub?” 

“Me?” Sweet Pea guffaws. 

“It will take lots of energy to power it up, so only for special occasions. Therefore, we should wait until fall or winter.” Betty points out.

They hit less items from Sweet Pea’s list. 

No tractor, no pets. No fish, no boat. No grain crusher, but that was a specific wish. They can make one, they decide, to the best of their ability. He apparently did grab board games, which will be good. 

“Dammit! I forgot a banjo.” Sweet Pea bemoaned, and Betty stifled a giggle. 

“I think I might be fine with the exclusion of that.” She says. 

“Oh, c’mon. If we’re going redneck, we might as well go full-on redneck.” Sweet Pea says. 

“With your cut-off flannels and dubious bathing schedule, you’re halfway there.” Betty is laughing so hard it almost hurts. 

“All I need now is a beer, a gun to kill an animal, and to be kissing my cousin.” 

“Eww, Penny?” Betty gags at the thought. 

“Shit,” Sweet Pea shudders, “Forgot that’s her. Yuck, nope. Can’t do it. Not even pretend. Not a redneck.” He pouts, “I’ll be country. With, you know, trains...trucks...prison...getting drunk.” 

“Yeah, that is country.” 

“It’s a reference,” Sweet Pea said, “Really? Not that one either? God, did you grow up under a rock, Cooper?” He asks, launching himself out of bed to grab his iPhone. 

“Uhm, yeah. Pretty much. You met my mom?” Betty asks, “I still technically wasn’t allowed to listen to explicit songs. At sixteen. My computer still had sites of ‘adult content’ blocked out.” 

“Whereas me, I saw my first porn video at age ten,” Sweet Pea said off-handedly, “I thought it was gross, by the way. Don’t want you thinking I’m some weirdo.” 

“Oh, me think that about you?” Betty grinned ear to ear, “Never.” 

Sweet Pea absently flipped her the bird as he scrolled, “Okay, okay. You’ve never heard the song ‘ _ You Never Even Called Me By My Name _ ’?” 

Betty shook her head. 

He put up the volume, setting it on the end of the bed. 

“Are you going to dance?” Betty asked, not knowing where that question came from ,”I mean, I danced, the Serpents...and at the Lodge Lodge…” she trailed off, feeling really stupid. 

“It’s not really a ‘dancing sexy stripper’ song.” Sweet Pea tilted his head, “But I have those sorts. Do you have ones to throw at me?” 

“First I have to see if you’re worth my ones.” Betty sat on her haunches. 

“Shh! You’re gunna miss the song,” Sweet Pea quieted her. She pursed her lips, smiling, throwing up her hands in an ‘I’ll be quiet’ motion. 

After the song was done, and it was a very country song, Betty decided, Sweet Pea flopped back down next to her. 

“I guess you’re not getting my ones,” She teased, but also a little glad she didn’t have to see Sweet Pea stripping right now and figure out her feelings on the spot. 

“I think at this point, your ones are my ones. This is all very domestic, you see,” he said, waving his hands in front of him, “Like a married couple or something.” 

Betty almost said, ‘but without the sex’, but had the good forethought to bite down on her tongue hard. Where was all this coming from? She was usually better than these near slips! 

“Ever imagine yourself married?”  Betty asked quietly, taking it in a different direction. 

“Dunno. My life attracted a lot of girls who wanted a bad boy. Bad girls, or prissy girls who woulda dumped me not long after,” He thought about it, “I’m eighteen. Some people are getting married, but that just seems so far off. Christ, I’ve never had a stable relationship. Just one-night stands, or a couple friends with benefits.” 

“Jughead was my first...well, first everything,” Betty corrects herself, thinking hard. 

“But you would have married him?” 

“If things were good, if the world didn’t end,” Betty’s not pretending she wouldn’t. 

“You said you're not a virgin, right?” Sweet Pea’s question comes from left-field. 

“Yes, I mean, no, I mean…” The question flustered Betty, “I have had sex.” 

“But you said your mom wouldn’t let you get on dirty sites or whatever,” Sweet Pea put his hand behind his head, “So…” 

“I know how to get around her parental locks. I’m seventeen, Sweets,” Betty scoffs, “And much more technologically skilled than her or my dad. And maybe if they’d been more open about it, Polly wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. Said that to my mom once in a fight.” 

“Oof, sure that went over well.” 

Betty gave a dry laugh, “Yeah. As in, not at all. But, I dunno, it was lots of experimenting with Jug. About what we liked. Both of us. I’m not stupid thought. I know A goes in B and all that jazz.” She said, feeling less awkward to be discussing this with Sweet Pea as she would have thought, “I think , since both of us had no clue what we were doing, it made it better. I didn’t feel self-conscious about my lack of knowledge because I had more, because I study and look things up. If I’d been with a guy who was experienced…” She made a weighing motion, “I might have figured it out faster, but I would have felt totally unsure the whole time.” 

“I have far less experience than I think I present myself to have,” The admission came out quietly, all at once, “I’ve only had sex with like six people.” 

“Five more people than I have.” Betty blew out. 

“But people think I’m a sex god or something. I’m still fumbling too. Guys have it easier. If it gets us off, we like it. But, I haven’t experimented much. Basic stuff.” 

Betty tries not to laugh, but she can’t help it. 

“What?” He asked sharply. 

“It’s just...god, um,” Betty thought of her darker side, Dark Betty. About camming. About handcuffs, “Nothing, nothing.” 

Sweet Pea sits up, eyes gleaming, “My god. Is Betty Cooper secretly kinky? Oh, it’s always the quiet ones.” He looks pleased as punch. 

“Oh my god,” Betty covers her whole face, rolling away. 

“It’s so true! You are? Like, what? Choking? Whipping? Are you a dominatrix?” He whispers, getting more excited, “Pleases tell me Jug likes getting slapped around. For all his Alpha posturing, you’re the one with the pants on. If I slapped him, would he have gotten a boner?” 

“God, Sweets! I don’t know that” Betty is entirely red now, “I guess, a little? I mean, I had to have an outlet somewhere…” 

“I can so see it. You kinda run this house too. I can respect that. I was raised around a bunch of strong women.” 

And, just like that, the conversation dips away from sex things. Which, maybe, is for the better, considering Betty had nearly been about to ask Sweet Pea if he’d like to see in person her kinky tendencies. But this wasn’t the time. The conversation, though about sex, wasn’t sexy in itself. It was more informational, casual...fun, almost. Not the right time and place. 

Especially, Betty thinks as an afterthought, after so much discussion of Jughead, and so casually. Like he was an ex, a tragic ex-boyfriend, and not someone she’d lost. Once again, as though this life was normal. 

But you make it normal, she thinks. As normal as one can. 

XXxxXX

_ September 18, 2018 _

Back when Betty was younger, her family took a trip across the country. Due to time-changes and airplanes, when they returned home, even though it was hardly 10am, they were very jet lagged. Her mother just told everyone to go to sleep and Betty fell asleep in her bed with the morning sun streaming in, the rest of Riverdale awakening to a new day. 

That’s sort of how the next morning follows. Her and Sweet Pea lapse into a quiet companionship, eventually reading books until the sun is high. Their adrenaline from their near deaths is wearing off and the night sinks away into a beautiful new morning. They both unload the bins that have food and both promptly fall asleep. 

It’s one of the best sleeps Betty’s had in a very long time. It feels effortless. It feels stress-free. It’s wonderful. 

Their schedule is a little messed up after that. Technically, they lose a whole day. The seventeenth of September? Just straight up gone. 

Maybe it’s okay. They deserve a day to collect their bones back together and re-adjust. 

Betty dreams of...Riverdale. 

She doesn’t dream much. She never has. It used to bother her. Of late, it’s just better, since she thinks her dreams would be nightmares if they were anything. 

Tonight, or rather today, she dreamed of home. Or, of her old home, since when she thinks of home now, she thinks of the cabin. She thinks of her workspace, where she tinkers with electronics and has all the instruction manuals spread out before her. She thinks of Sweet Pea in the fields, his hands stained with dirt, and how he cooks them dinner. She thinks of his impromptu dance parties with music she’s never heard of. She thinks of the smell of pine trees. She thinks of here. 

When Sweet Pea had told her they were home the other day, from his tone, she knows he’s made this change in his mind too. 

But, all tangents aside, she dreams of Riverdale and her old street corner. 

It’s not an earth-shattering dream. It’s not even a weird dream, the one where she opens doors that leads to bathtubs or frogs speak or some other strange connection made. No, in fact, it’s fairly...normal. So normal, it almost feels like a memory. 

It could be. It’s just of her life. Her life pre-walkers, pre-apocalypse. Pre-Sweet Pea, to be honest. It’s actually no set time, nothing specific, but she gets the feel of when it probably is set in. 

She’s just on her street. Archie and Jughead are in Archie’s yard, playing with Vegas. Mr. Andrews is cooking a BBQ dinner on the grill. Her dad is helping him; they’re laughing about something. Her mom is inside, talking to Polly, as they make lemon-aid. Veronica and Betty sit on her steps leading up to her house. Veronica is talking about something, but come waking, Betty won’t remember. It’s something nice and safe. Archie perhaps? Maybe singing. Maybe schoolwork. 

Then, people start showing up. It’s a whole block party. That’s maybe the only strange thing about it; how this dream has shoved so many people from Betty’s old life into this dream that, in truth, felt short. 

So many people Betty has forgotten about until right about now.

Moose and Midge. Kevin and his dad. Josie and the Pussycats. Reggie and a whole group of Bulldogs, playing a pick-up football match. They’ve roped Jughead into it. He’s smiling, though Jughead would never willingly play, much less laugh about it. The Blossoms are even there; all four of them. Jason is alive. He’s flirting with Polly. Dilton and Benji and Ethel are over there, eating hamburgers and dancing. 

It’s nothing special, this dream. It’s just a cook-out set on a summer’s day. There’s a timeless tinge to it, like old movies. It’s freeing, it’s simple, it’s just a happy dream. 

When Betty awakens, she stumbles to the bathroom and slams the door behind her, pressing her mouth across her lips. 

It doesn’t mean anything, she tells herself. Sweet Pea probably buys into dream meanings, but Betty does not. 

Still, she cannot help the tears that prickle in the back of her eyes, because she’s been shoving away those memories. Maybe her brain decided it was time to let them out. 

“Betty? You okay?” Sweet Pea’s voice is so concerned outside the door.

Betty swallowed. She splashed some icy water on her cheeks. 

“Yes,” Her voice cracked, but she opened the door all the same, “Just, felt sick for a second.” 

She obviously noticed her dream had no Serpents, which was stupid. The Serpentes are important to her. But, still…

The dream clings to her. 

Half-way through the day, as they’re unloading the tubs, Betty gets why it’s bothering her. 

It’s because, while that life would have once been what she wanted, she no longer wants that life. She wants this life, with Sweet Pea. Even if someone came to her and and said they could turn back the clock and give her that, but Sweet Pea wouldn’t know her and never would (or, they’d pass each other like ships in the night, in a world where she stayed with Jughead and was Serpent-Adjacent), Betty is sure she wouldn’t trade it in. And that thought terrifies her. 

She managed to be the one to unload the condoms and morning after pills. She stores those deep in her own personal box. As far as she knows, Sweet Pea didn’t see. 

All the discussion of house and belonging and normality, especially looking at the morning after pills, gives her pause. Condoms aren’t just for preventing kids, but the morning after pills definitely are. 

If things never go right, if things are always sideways...is this a possibility for them one day? 

She can’t think about that right now. She doesn’t want to. She’s seventeen. She for sure does. not want to be pregnant any time soon. She is very grateful, she decides, she has grabbed those. 

They manage to get half the truck unloaded and organized before they stop for the day. 

“Betty?” 

“Hmm?” Betty said, sitting cross-legged and sifting through books and wondering the best way to organize them. 

“I got you something.” 

Betty snapped her head up. “Really?” 

“Really,” Sweet Pea handed her a box, full of nail polish and other nail accessories, “There was a nail place near that Walgreens. Um, it reminded me of that story. About Veronica and the manicures. I mean, it’s not someone else doing it, but it might help. Plus, you said you just liked having it done, so…” he shrugs, rubbing the back of his head. 

Betty is moved, nearly to tears. 

“Sweets, I...god.” She says. It’s so thoughtful. She hadn’t even thought about that, though she’d seen the Nail place too, but it had been gone from her mind as she thought about other things. Admittedly, it had probably been that she was thinking about Sweet Pea naked. 

She managed to get ahold of herself, “I actually got something for you too. Nothing like this,” She added, feeling like her small thing was just so lacking in comparison, even if she hadn’t known he was doing this. 

She had been waiting to give it to him, but now seems like a good time. She held out about eight packets of seeds. 

Sweet Pea took a look at the title and threw his head back, laughing. 

Sweet Pea flowers. 

“We’ll plant them everywhere around us, the whole fucking house,” He decided, acting like she’d given him gold or something, “So that there’s no denying who lives here. Goddamn, if wish your name was a flower too. That would be poetic, huh.” 

“You could make my nickname a flower,” Betty pointed out. 

“No, no. Your nickname has to be organic, though I like that thought,” He said, “I’m working on it, Cooper!” 

“I didn’t even know your name was a flower, until I saw that,” Betty admitted, albeit a little bit embarrassed. 

“I didn’t until I was eight and a classmate asked why I was named after a girly prissy thing. I showed him exactly how prissy I was when I gave him a bloody nose.” Sweet Pea recalled with a prideful smile. 

“Sweet Pea!” 

“Well, he deserved it, clearly,” Sweet Pea scoffed, “I mean, he obviously doesn’t hate me, since that was Joaquin way back when.” 

Sweet Pea looked down at the packs. The smile on his face never faltered. The sheer joy over packets of seeds makes Betty grin in turn. 

“You know, Sweet Pea Flowers are sorta pretty…” She said with a mischievous grin. 

“You calling me pretty, Cooper?” 

“If the flower fits,” Betty enunciated her words carefully. Sweet Pea gave a tooth grin. 

“Fine. I’m pretty. I wont punch you.” 

“Because I’m a girl?” 

“For your information, I have knocked Toni flat on her ass. No, not because you’re a girl. Because, well, I like you so I’ll take it. Just don’t tell anyone,” He said in a stage-whisper, “Don’t want to ruin my reputation.” 

“Oh, damn. Guess I can’t run and tell that family of deer outside,” Betty waved her arms around, “Who’s there to tell?” 

“True, Coop. True.” 

XXxxXX

_ September 19th, 2018 _

Without the prospect of certain death staring them down, Betty wasn’t as sure about mentioning her feelings. If they were about to die and Sweet Pea didn't like her, she’d only be disappointed for a moment. If she said it now and he didn’t, it would just make things entirely awkward. 

Could she risk that? 

There were moments when she was sure he was flirting with her. There were moments when she thought she was making it all up and he was just being nice. 

Of course, she tells herself, past Betty might be kicking her. This was the same thing she’d been thinking about before nearly dying. That she doesn’t want to wait until they’re nearly dying again to say what she should say. 

And, if anything, didn’t the trip show her how fragile time was? How they could die at any second, especially here? 

But, what was her emotions for Sweet Pea? Well, frankly, she wanted fuck him. 

Did she love him beyond that…? 

She wasn’t entirely sure. But, she knew it was a crush. More than a crush. Less than love. Was that worth telling someone about? 

She decided, perhaps cowardly, until she was sure of it, to not say anything. 

Then, for a second, she’s a bit disgusted with herself. She is Elizabeth Cooper! She has actively hunted down two killers, at least! She does not shy away from love declaration.

And that, simply, is that.

She will tell him. 

XXxxXX

_ September 20th, 2018 _

Finding the right time to tell him is difficult. 

It’s not something Betty wants to blurt out over the dinner table, or while the pair of them organize their food stash and argue about if cans should be stacked or put on their side. 

She imagines it, the discussion. 

“Sweets, you’re just wrong if you think that cans should be stored anyway but stacked, and oh by the way, I think I might want to jump your bones and be nauseatingly cute with you.” 

Or,

“Hey, this corn is super good, is that a new spice on there? I think that’s a winner. On the topic, but not really, I might be falling for you. Like in love.” 

At least, she considers, it would be over quick. Like a bandaid. 

It was easy with Jughead. He kissed her first. She had only a couple days of wondering if he liked her the way she liked him before he made the first move. She didn’t have to agonize about the possible outcomes, good and bad, while she was hyper-actively looking for the moment to tell him. 

She thinks it will garner a discussion. She doubts it will just be Sweet Pea saying ‘cool’ and nothing else. Therefore, nights and mornings are out. Best choice is to mabe grab him in between tasks. 

She’s stalling. She knows she is. She knows there have been hundreds of times but she cannot possibly just get her lips to move.

She’s making a much bigger deal about it. Hyping herself up. Like going to the doctor and getting a shot; the anticipation is worse than the event. 

XXxxXX

_ September 21st, 2018 _

“Dammit all!” She heard Sweet Pea cursing from the van. The temperature has dropped about 15 degrees, according to their trusty thermostat sitting right outside the front door. However, 65 still isn’t cold. It’s downright comfortable, in Betty’s opinion. Still, they’re fearful that this might be a trend, and so they’ve been busting their asses all day to get out the last stragler boxes from the van. 

“You okay? You hurt?” Betty popped her head in. Sweet Pea is one of the most accident-prone people she’s ever met. In unloading the van, he’s cut his hand no less than three times. 

“No, just sad,” He pouted. He stood over a crate, “I just cracked a whole crate of wine.” 

Betty hopped in, helping him lift the cardboard box. It’s only a little damp, but there are at least four bottles that have fissures or cracks now. 

Sweet Pea ends up pouring the four bottles of champagne into one big vat. 

“Give me a second to pay my respects,” Betty said, putting a hand over her heart. Then, she went to tip the barrel over.

“Woah, woah! Hey, what gives?” Sweet Pea said, and all but shoved her onto her butt. 

“Uhm, dumping it out? We don’t have a way to store it.” 

“Betty Cooper,” Sweet Pea pinched the bridge of his nose, “Alcohol is one day going to be a rare commodity. It’s rare to us now, at our ages of seventeen and eighteen. We are not going to dump this out!” 

“Then what are we going to do with it?” Betty asked, snorting, “Bathe in it?” 

“We should celebrate your birthday. Belatedly,” Sweet Pea looks to the bin of fizzing drinks, “Properly.” 

“You’re saying we should drink four bottles worth in one night?” Betty felt a headache just imagining it. 

“Spoil sport! C’mon, I bet you can count on your hand the number of times you’ve gotten drunk,” He goaded. 

“Yes.” Betty held up a single finger. 

“You mean at Lodge Lodge?” 

Betty nodded, her neck flushed. 

“Well, let’s remedy that. I’ll be your sober-ish companion. My tolerance is leagues above yours. For every three glass you have, I’ll have one.” He said, “Aren’t you always the one saying ‘waste-not, want-not’?” 

Betty is a little pissed that he’s caught her with her own words. She made him keep a loose thread from his shirt the other day, because who knows how long thread will be just lying around? 

“Well,” She begun softly, “I never really got to celebrate my birthday.” And, chances are, if she’d been back in Riverdale, Veronica would have insisted on some ostentatious party where there would have been alcohol anyway. 

“Perfect!” Sweet Pea went to the cabinet, and dipped two glasses into the tub, “Bottoms up!” 

“But, but...the rest of the van,” Betty sputtered. 

“Yeah. We’ll do that. Or, just put it in the entrance. Not organizing medical supplies won’t kill us. We have tomorrow. And the next, and the next, and the next.” 

His grin once again gave Betty flutters. 

She thinks to herself it will be far easier to tell him with a little liquid courage, therefore, she finishes the first glass of champagne in one gulp. 

She is Betty-fucking-Cooper. She has this. 

XXxxXX

They hurry to bring the rest of the items in. By glass three, Betty is already feeling a little bit floaty, like she’s walking on air. It makes her sort of giggly. 

“I love seeing people’s drunk-alters,” Sweet Pea told her, “Everyone is different and you can never guess it until you get someone drunk. Toni? She’s the type that starts getting really touchy-feely, all, ‘Have I ever told you how much I love you Sweets? Oh I just love our friendship’ and all the things she’d never say sober. Fangs always feels like he’s overheated and tries to take his clothes off.” 

He tells Betty he’s sorta an angry drunk. Well, not abusive drunk, but he wants to fight things. He finds fighting things fun when drunk. You ask him to participate in a boxing match while drunk? Sweet Pea is all over that. He wants to hit things. 

“That sounds like normal Sweet Pea,” Betty quipped, thinking of how he was always the first one throwing a fist in tense situations. 

“I go looking for fights when drunk, and do it laughing,” He explained. 

“How often did you get drunk?” 

“It’s not like the Wyrm was carding,” Sweet Pea shrugged. 

For dinner, they heat, over the microwave, a can of Spaghetti-O’s and have a granola bar each. Betty, even fuzzy feeling, knows soon they’ll have to start hunting and canning and preserving. Their dry-food is supposed to be emergency only. Caught and picked food is supposed to sustain them. She makes a reminder to think about this later.

“Oh, nope. I can see your mind whirling. Drink.” Sweet Pea shoved another glass under her nose, “No survivalist planning.” 

“Fine. But remind me tomorrow that we have to start hunting.” Betty narrows her eyes. Sweet Pea had accused her of not being able to let go earlier in the day, which she protested. She was going to show him. Betty Cooper could have fun. Betty Cooper could let loose. 

And she should! This was her birthday celebration, albeit a month and a handful of days late. 

“Noted.” Sweet Pea said, “Now, chug, chug, chug…” 

At her sixth glass of wine, Betty Cooper lets her hair out of her ponytail and throws her jacket off. 

At her eight glass of wine, Betty insists Sweet Pea make a playlist of songs for her birthday. Club music only. Things that Veronica would would squeal when it came on and drag Betty onto a dance floor while insisting ‘this is our song, girl!’. Songs that Betty Cooper, excuse me-  _ sober  _ Betty Cooper would feel really awkward dancing to. Songs like that. Sweet Pea holds up his hand, and Betty becomes a backseat DJ, pointing at titles on his iPod that always made her say ‘they play  _ this  _ on the radio?’ when she’d listen to the lyrics. 

“Do you just want to make the playlist?” Sweet Pea finally asks, but his eyes were bright. 

“No, oh no, no,” Betty stumbles, “You’re the music master.” 

“That I am. So can it. God, you’re a lightweight.” 

The playlist, as far as Betty remembered, was very good. She still thinks her additions were what made it, though. 

At her ninth glass of wine...that’s around the time that Betty’s attention span is that of a squirrel and she is sure she won’t remember this the next morning. This worries her, since she hasn’t told Sweet Pea the things that need to be said,and maybe she should do it soon. Then, the thought is gone, and Betty doesn’t care because already, she does not remember. 

They’re playing a two-person drinking game with cards. Since Betty is super drunk at this point and it’s all about reflexes, she had the thought it as terribly unfair. And, everytime that he wins a point, Betty has to take a shot of the wine. It’s getting down to the bottom of the barrel, maybe two or three glasses left. For sure drinkable. It had seemed like Everest at the beginning of the night. She’s sure she’s had most of that. Sweet Pea hardly seems different at all. He might even basically be sober. 

“Betty? Hey, two more shots,” Sweet Pea snapped a finger in front of her face. He flashed his winning cards in front of her face, catching her attention.

Betty lets her cards fall. She stumbled over the couch, taking the most direct route instead of going around it like a normal, sober person.

“Sweet Pea! It’s raining.” She gasps, looking out at their little yard with the chicken-wire. 

“Uhm, yeah. It has been for the last hour.” Sweet Pea snorted. 

“It’s raining!” Betty repeated. 

“Yes…?” 

“We need to go outside.” Betty says with as much seriousness as she can muster. She isn’t sure why, but she  _ has  _ to go outside, “Bring the iPod!” She yells back, throwing open the door. 

The rain is just cool enough to feel good on her warm, exposed skin. The whole night is actually perfect. It’s not too cloudy, not too windy, not too cold. It’s like something out of a cheesy Hallmark-movie, the ones Polly would make her watch and always cry at the end. 

Betty threw off her shoes, walking to the center of the field. She squished her toes in the mud, feeling gleeful and so unlike herself. Sweet Pea watched from the front porch, stifling his laugher behind a hand. 

He set his iPod on a dry table under the awning. 

The current song- Low by T-Pain faded out, and the next song on felt like fate. 

_ Oooh, you can dance! You can jive!  _

“Sweets! Look, it’s perfect,” Betty said, “I am the Dancing Queen! I’m seventeen!” 

“You have told me directly, on more than one occasion, that you do not dance,” Sweet Pea was giving her a weird look. 

“Betty Cooper might not dance,” Betty corrected, spinning around in a couple circles, “But my drunk-alter, uhm, how did you say you did it? Cetty Booper? She  _ is  _ the Dancing Queen. See?” She tried to be like a ballerina. Her mother had put her and Polly in dance lessons at the age of five. Betty had stayed in it for about four years before deciding it wasn’t for her. She doubted she still had access to all the forms, but maybe, if she thought really hard…

“Oh, yeah, yep. I was totally mistaken.” Sweet Pea gave a slow clap. 

Betty stopped her spinning, which was good since she was feeling a wee bit nausieated now, holding out an accusatory finger, “I  _ feel  _ like you’re being sarcastic. But I can’t tell. I think I’m tipsy.”

“I think you’re totally shit-faced, Cooper.” 

“Stop just standing there like a log, Sweets-,” 

“Do you maybe mean like a tree?” 

“I mean like a log,” She had meant tree, but she wasn’t going to tell him that, “I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Come on. Be my dancing king,” She pleaded. 

“Well, how can I say no to that?” He scoffed. Sweet Pea shook off his leather jacket, leaving it next to his iPod and coming out. Betty grabbed his arm, and he danced with her. They must have looked like idiots out there in the rain, pretending like it was normal. 

“Oh, gosh,” Sweet Pea pushed the hair from his eyes, “I can’t remember the last time I danced,” He breathed once the song stopped.

Betty gasped, for some reason, finding this very unacceptable, “You don’t dance?” 

“No. We’ve had multiple conversations about this, Betty,” he reminded with a grin. 

“Well, why’d you come out then?” 

He shrugged uneasily, sticking his hands in his soaked jean pockets, “Dunno. You asked me to.” 

_ Tell him, tell him!  _

Betty licked her lips, but all her words suddenly seemed lost on her. She couldn’t remember how to speak. But it was imperative she tell him. This was that grand moment she’d been searching for! 

So, Betty did the next best thing to convey to him how she felt.

She grabbed his head, pulled him down, rose up on the balls of her feet, and kissed him.

XXxxXX

Sweet Pea will tell anyone who asks that he is sort of a selfish person.

He was born and raised on the wrong sides of the tracks. He is a little rough around the edges and was taught from a very young age two truths that have served him well; never say no when someone is giving you something you want and if they aren’t giving it, take it. 

It takes a milliscent for Sweet Pea to realize that Betty Cooper is kissing him, and only another to respond back. 

He knows that a do-gooder like Archie or Jughead would have pushed Betty away. She was maybe too drunk to be thinking straight. But he wasn’t the one who kissed her, you see. She’d kissed him. And, he has a theory about drunk Betty. Drunk Betty is not haunted by her strict upbringings. Drunk Betty, as proven the entire night, only does what Drunk Betty want and nothing more. She’s stubborn like that, in way that equally infuriates him but also sets his blood on fire. 

Sweet Pea does not push her away. He pulls her closer. 

He grabs onto her hair with one hand, the other tugging on her cami (which, lucky him, is practically see-through in the rain), to encourage Betty to all but climb on top of him. 

He’s been thinking about her like this for awhile now. 

Awhile now? Scratch that. That doesn’t even cut it. He’s wanted Betty since she was with Jughead, since the world wasn’t overrun by undead cannibals. Back then, it was purely sexually. He for sure imagined the one-off time where maybe Jughead and Betty would be off-again in their light-switch relationship and he’d be there to comfort her, or something like that. 

Now? Well…

Here’s a truth. Sweet Pea’s never been in love. That’s how he’s pretty-nearly-almost sure he might be falling in love with Betty. He’s just never felt how he feels about her with anyone else. 

He’s selfish, as already established. He’d be the first one to trip Toni if a bear was about to maul them and it was just a matter of one being faster than the other, which is not something he likes to admit. 

Yesterday, though? Damn, son, he’d been willing to die first. He was purposely putting himself in harm’s way, just so Betty had a chance to stay alive. He’d lay down his fucking life for her, and this means a lot to him. It’s not sisterly-Serpents protect each other bullshit either. This, he thinks, this could be real. 

Yesterday, while cowering together and considering that they might die, they were uncomfortably close. ‘Uncomfortable’ being the key word, in the sense that if he was literally at any inch of a level below ‘oh my god this could be the end’, it would have been very awkward very quick. As it was, while one part of him was praying that they’d live to see another day, another-albeit very small part of his mind- was praying he wasn’t going to pop a boner right then. 

Sweet Pea is a guy. He thinks about sex. He thinks about it a lot. And, sue him, one fleeting thought in that cabinet was that he totally regretted that he hadn’t had a go at it with Cooper, and also that there were a lot of things he was sure he was going to come out and say to her, like a total softie. 

When Betty had bit down on his shoulder, even though he knew it was so she didn’t make noise, oh man. 

But he hadn’t wanted to bring it up directly after. Both of them were so spooked, it didn’t seem right. They were both just thanking their lucky stars they survived the day. 

He’d been sure that her little admision had meant so much more than she was letting on, the words she’d said to him in the darkness of the hospital, awaiting an excruciating death.

But he was a guy. He was dense. Unless Betty Cooper came dancing near naked up next to him, he couldn’t be sure. 

So he thought, until he’d stumbled across her box of...well,  _ party favors.  _

He’d been absentmindedly opening crates, when he’d noticed an array of sweaters folded very strangely in a box with a lot of things from Walgreens. So, he’d investigated.

Imagine his surprise when he’d found a whole stockpile of condom and morning after pills. 

He’d wrapped them back up exactly, shut the box, and then sat on the lid of it in the shadows of the moving van. Then, he’d bit the area between his pointer and thumb hard, willing his very aggressive erection to vanish before Betty returned back to the van to grab another box. He thought of Fangs’ grandmother naked, a true and unfortunate sight he’d had the displeasure to see once. He thought of FP yelling at him for something stupid. He thought of Jughead naked. Ah-ha, that did it. 

And then, that first night, he had to change the subject in the bed or else he was going to show Betty more than he bargained for right now. The idea of Kinky Betty? Sign him the fuck up. 

If he wasn’t entirely sure, he was more than sure now. 

Betty sort of tackled him, shoving him down into the grass. He was soaked, but who cared? Betty Cooper was kissing him like he was water, and she was in a desert. This hadn’t been his intention, by the way, to loosen Betty up enough for her to kiss him or make a move. He’d just wanted her to have a good time and not waste that perfectly good champagne. This was just an added bonus, the best end to her celebration. 

Betty detached from his, breathing hard. 

“Betty, do you think-,” 

His questions of perhaps moving to the bedroom (and doing everything but sleeping) was cut off as Betty moaned. Not a sexy moan, a sick moan. 

“Sweets, I don’t feel so good.” She whimpered. 

He helped her up, “Hey, that’s fine, let’s just...goddamnit,” he cussed as Betty promptly threw up, sort of all over his clothes and her own. To be honest, he should have seen this coming. He felt stupid he didn’t. 

“I’m so sorry!” Betty gasped, but she still looked a little green. 

“No problem, no problem,” He grumbled. He helped her inside, into the bedroom. He helped her peel off her shorts and tank-top, throwing them in a bin to deal with tomorrow. Betty was now in just her bra and underwear, but in the exact worse scenario that lead up to it. 

As much as he so desperately wanted to go further...not tonight. 

Nothing killed the mood like vomit. 

He found Betty a bucket, putting it by the bed. He went into the bathroom, stripped off his own shirt, and proceeded to hit his head against the wall a few times.

His momma had always said that he was unlucky. 

He was pretty sure no truer words had been said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MWAHAHHAHAHHAAA
> 
> So, now, as for notes
> 
> *First and most foremost, RIP Luke Perry. If you haven't heard, the actor that plays Fred Andrews died yesterday from a stroke. He was only 52 and seriously, in good health. It's just so utterly awful. He was multi-generational; me (a grad student), my teenage sister, and my mother all liked him. My mom was talking about how he was one of the first celeb posters she had on her wall. Just, have your thoughts be with his family, because this is absolutely just so unexpectedly heart-wrenching. I wrote this chapter about a month and a half ago, and when I came to the part that had Mr. Andrews in it when I was editing yesterday, I very seriously had to sniffle and hold back tears.
> 
> *Originally, there wasn't going to be a kiss this soon! But you all wanted it SO bad that, well, who doesn't love a tropey rain kiss?
> 
> *The song, when I originally heard it, the first thought I had was 'huh, sounds like it would be played during the apocalypse'. Apparently, everyone in the YT comments thought so too. Go check it out! It's super coolio.
> 
> *I, cough, didn't know that a Sweet Pea was a flower until like this summer...I just thought it was a weird name...
> 
> *I have decided that this will update monthly! So, be on the look-out for updates around the 5th of each month or so :)
> 
> As always, review!


	12. Track 11: Waiting for the End of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Song for this chapter is Waiting for the End of the World by Elvis Costello!

_September 22nd, 2018_

Betty woke up feeling like her body was not her own. That is, to say, that it felt foreign and aching and full of lead. It was as though someone had come in during the night and replaced everything with a more painful and non-human counterpart.

Her throat felt like sandpaper that someone had rubbed nearly all the way down, and then left outside without water for forty days and forty nights. Her head felt like a brass band in which every member was deaf and trying to play as loud as they could, while also jumping up and down. Her eyes hurt to open. Her entire body tingles like when her leg fell asleep, and when she tried to shift under the blankets, it just felt like she was swimming in thick mud. She tried to speak, but her lips seemed like they had forgotten, and Betty just whined.

Beside her, Sweet Pea shifted.

"Mornin' party girl."

"Why are you yelling?" Betty moaned, curling the pillow over her face.

"I'm speaking normally."

"Lies."

Sweet Pea chuckled, "That better?" He asked in a much more appropriate tone.

Betty tried to make an affirmation sound, but it might have just been wheezing.

"I'm getting you water. This is a hangover. It probably will last all day," Sweet Pea said, as though lecturing in a college class.

Betty opened one eye to see Sweet Pea pulling on a shirt and pair of sports shorts, humming to himself. It was only seeing him so unclothed that Betty realized something else about her body; she was naked.

Not 'naked as the day you were born' naked, but naked in the sense that she only had her bra and underwear on. Betty was the type that couldn't imagine just going to bed without something on, and religiously wore at least a ratty shirt and pair of shorts, if not an entire matching pj set or a nightgown.

Which lead her to one conclusion.

"Sweets, did we...uh...last night?" She began carefully. Sweet Pea was out of the room, in the hallway.

"Have sex? No." His answer was short and simple, and he didn't turn back to answer her as he walked toward the kitchen.

 _Oh, thank God,_  Betty thought. When she had sex with Sweet Pea for the first time, she wanted to remember it. She wanted to never forget how he felt inside of her, or how his face looked when he came. She didn't want it to be when they were drunk.

Sweet Pea seemed to take an unusually long time getting water. Or, perhaps she was drunk. When he returned, his whole smile wasn't quite there, but he gave Betty's ruffled expression a warm look, shaking his head.

"You're in for a rough day, Cooper."

"Where are you going?" Betty asked as he turned out of the room.

"Breakfast," He replied without turning back around, "And organizing. You just...come when you feel better, okay?"

Something in his voice was tight, but Betty couldn't figure out what.

"Oh, sure."

XXxxXX

"Sweets? Did we...uh...last night?"

Sweet Pea, halfway out the door, held back a grin. He so much wanted to turn back to see Betty's adorably blushing face, but he feared his own face might give away too much of his own feelings.

"Have sex? No."

He toyed with the idea of adding something else, such as 'you sort of threw up on me', which would give her a why or perhaps make a cheeky comment that if she wasn't blushing, she'd be soon.

He heard Betty exhale, and then stopped dead at her next words;

"Oh, thank God."

It was quiet, just a hair above a whisper. Maybe he wasn't supposed to hear it. Maybe he was.

All Sweet Pea could do was hasten quickly to the kitchen and the bin they kept of sanitized water, but he felt himself gripping the glass too hard, his whole arm shaking.

He just sank down onto the carpeted floor.

He'd been rejected before, this wasn't anything new. He'd just never been so...invested in someone. He'd never wanted someone as ferociously as he did Betty.

He gathered his thoughts.

Last night, Betty was so incredibly drunk. Black-out drunk. Why did he expect anything she did to mean anything today? That was just erroneous thinking on his part. It was also quite presumptuous. Last night they existed in a strange mirror world where Betty drank harder than Sweets and she kissed him like he was Jughead. He couldn't have expected it to last, could he?

And to be honest, he couldn't even find reason to be mad at her. It wasn't some pre-written rule that Betty had to like him. If anything, it was Sweet Pea who's expectations needed to be examined.

And, truly, this wouldn't change anything. They'd still be partners, still act like they had on before, still care for each other. He didn't think she disliked him, she just didn't feel that way like he did for her.

Oh thank god; maybe she'd been right? If they had gotten around to sex last night, and she'd woken up this morning horrified at it, she might think he pressured her...which Sweet Pea would never do. And that would have changed the dynamic, that would have been worse.

At least her feelings were clear now, he told himself. No room for mistakes.

Still, he couldn't stop the hurt.

He wasn't going to let Betty see. That wasn't fair to her. He didn't blame her. His feelings were his own, hers were hers. He had to respect that.

He dunked the glass in the tub and returned to Betty's and his room. He found it difficult to be in the area with her, after ending last night thinking they had their feelings all figured out.

Things would get easier. They always did.

XXxxXX

_September 23rd, 2018_

The day after Betty's 'birthday', Betty spent most of it flopping around the bed, moaning and feeling ready to die. Sweet Pea, who didn't seem drunk at all, was scarce, working through their very long list of things to do before winter came.

At first, she chalked it up to a role reversal, one in which he was the responsible one, where Betty was the party animal nursing her late night out.

By the second day, however, it became clear. Well, not clear, but more obvious.

Sweet Pea wasn't ignoring her, which is what made it hard for her to notice at first. He was spending the exact same amount of time with her as usual, but that was it. He was playing their interactions out as though it was business as normal. No, it was more than that, he was being very attentive to do this. Almost methodical, or calculated.

He was treating her with kid gloves. He was treating her with 'just friends' looks and touches to a point where it couldn't be ignored.

This lead Betty to to one conclusion she couldn't shake; he didn't like her.

She knew she'd set out that night to tell Sweet Pea how she felt. Betty couldn't imagine in any world that she wouldn't have done so, not when her goal was so concrete in her mind. There wasn't casual flirting or blushing and unsureness of a new crush, the way Betty recalled it usually went. His careful way he spoke and acted with her told her that he'd likely turned her down the nights previous, and realizing she recalled nothing of that night, was now making his feelings clear. He was doing all he could to not misconstrue their interactions.

It sort of stung.

Betty nearly asked him to confirm it, but she realized she couldn't bear that feeling. It would be like Archie all over again, and that had truly cut at her heart.

She'd been so sure that he…

Well, she'd also been positive that Archie had been in love with her all their lives, and that wasn't true, right? And Jughead liking her had more or less caught her by surprise.

So, in all, with her track record, Betty shouldn't have been so shocked that he didn't feel the same. She should have realized she was going out on a limb.

Well, okay then. They had to just move past it. There wasn't any other option.

A part of Betty was very glad she couldn't remember that night. She didn't think she could handle the full recollection of his rejection. The aftermath was painful enough.

XXxxXX

_October 1st, 2018_

As the days slipped into October, it became easy to forget about the incident. There was so much to do that it left both of them exhausted and in their own worlds more times than not. And, if they were doing an activity together, they were both so focused on their individual tasks that there wasn't time to talk anyway.

Now that the weather was beginning the cool, there was the real fear that any day now it could snow, and they might not be ready.

Their lists of tasks seemed never ending. If they thought they'd been busy in the summer, they had no idea what they were in for. The most frustrating thing was knowing that once winter hit, they would have so much endless time, time in which none of the things on their 'before winter' list could be done anymore, and they'd just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

Most of their things on the 'list' had an end date, but a date that neither could predict.

They had to triage their goals, but the difficult thing was nothing on their list wasn't important for the upcoming season. Food, heat, and health were all equally as needed, and none could be spared. The only thing that could be more or less axed was Betty's efforts to get flowing water again. As nice as it would have been to shower, and as much as they feared the pipes would freeze without this, it wasn't a necessity. They had their bins of water. One day, they might fix it, but this winter they'd go without. The days they began to pull- the long, grueling hours- were just short of driving both to insanity. Perhaps, if they'd been back in Riverdale and the fate of their very lives wasn't weighing upon them, they would have.

It was during these times that Betty thought about how she truly was glad to have Sweet Pea. He was a hard worker, because that's all life had ever expected of him. She imagined being paired with one of the kids from her high school that had never worked a day in their lives. It was horrifying to imagine. She didn't envy whoever they had found, if those people weren't already dead.

If there was any free time to be found between Sweet Pea tilling the land and Betty canning food or preparing it for long-term storage, they took turns chopping firewood to store in bulk. No, not even in bulk. In excess.

As much as they (or, really, Betty) was trying to double check the few solar energy panels, they couldn't be too careful when it came to storing ways to make the house warm. They also came to the executive decision to only utilize the most important rooms and no more. They'd seal off the rest of the house, since two people didn't need too much space.

Sweet Pea chopped wood faster than Betty, but it was a good breather. Like killing walkers, there was a sense of calming to be able to viciously split wood. Anytime either were feeling frustrated, this chore kept both with an outlet and exhausted afterwards.

Speaking of walkers, they also needed to consider realistically how they would guess the winter would play out. Did they need to up the walls? Was it something neither had to worry about? How aggressive would their enemies be?

And human enemies! They ran the risk of others seeking their warmth, their food, once things got difficult. It caused both to have to consider some unsavory choices they'd have to make later to keep their home safe. Like killing humans. Which, in the apocalypse, seemed counter-productive. But they both agreed they weren't going to sit around and wait for someone else to kill them first.

It was something they put a pin in.

Yes, with all the business they had about with preparing for cold and snow, forgetting about the whole birthday affair was easy enough to do.

XXxxXX

_October 2nd, 2018_

By the time that Jughead's birthday had hit, the weather had dropped from balmy 80s to mid 50s, foretelling the incoming season. It became cool enough for Betty to don her Serpent Jacket most days, and a necessity in the cool air of the night.

It made her ruminate a lot upon how things could have been very different had her mother never married her father. Maybe, in a slightly alternative life, she would have been wearing this jacket since childhood, like Sweet Pea.

She also thought a lot about the owner of the jacket, a stringy boy named Lann. She recalled seeing him at a few events. She thought about how he was dead and that was sad. She thought about how a lot of people she loved were dead.

Putting on the Serpent Jacket also made her feel detached from Jughead, who had tried to hard to keep her out of this life. Then again, he had asked her to be his Serpent Queen days before this whole madness happened, so maybe he'd be pleased.

It was impossible to guess anything about Jughead. He'd never been one to be predictable, but that's what she'd loved about him.

She was mid-way through his birthday before she realized it.

Sweet Pea undoubtedly knew. He had a way of keeping the calendar straight inside of his head in a way that Betty never could. In summers, if given enough free time, Betty would become confused about what date they were on within a couple days. She had the feeling Swee Pea would have been on top of that, since he was now. It showed her an intelligence that was hard to quantify in traditional schooling. She mused that with the right teachers and right lessons, what sort of greatness could Sweet Pea have reaped?

Either way, she was sure that Sweet Pea was very much aware of the date before him. In fact, it was his stumbling around her that caused Betty to check the date on the paper calendar they kept.

And, oh.

It seemed rude to not mark it's passing in some way. At least, now that she knew it was occurring. If she hadn't looked and realized days later, she wouldn't have felt quite as compelled to make a motion to it.

Not to say she was going to throw herself on her bed sobbing, or write sad things in her diary.

But Jughead deserved something. And, god willing, his spirit out there would see it.

Sweet Pea didn't question when she vanished mid-day. In fact, he probably knew.

Sweet Pea might take the cake with keeping track of dates, but Betty recalled more birthdays than she ever wanted to know. Somehow, once you told her your birthday, Betty's memory would commit it to her mind practically forever. It was for sure weird that she still remembered Moose's or Dilton's birthday, even if they had gone to school together since kindergarten.

Jughead's was the first birthday that had come up she wanted to recognize. Her mother's, father's, niece and nephew's, sister,'s, Archie's, Kevin's, and Veronica's all fell past the date of when they'd started really making something good here at the house. Not that they had a breather, but they were not going anywhere soon.

She was sure that Sweet Pea remembered the birthdays of those he'd cared about. He seemed like the type.

On the edge of their chicken-wire property, there was a tree Betty had decided was beautiful. It was old and regal looking, the bark a pleasing brownish-red tone. The leaves were full. It looked like the sort of tree Impressionist painters would have sat for the day and painted in different light. Maybe, next summer, Betty would too.

It seemed a good place as any to make a place to honor the dead.

Everyone, body present or not, deserved a burial.

She didn't have a nice headstone for him. She wished she was able to carve a flat stone beautifully, or even scratch it semi-legibly, but writing on stone was way harder than she thought. She suddenly had a greater appreciation for the Greeks and Romans or grave-stone artisans.

In the end, what she was able to do, was dig out an area and plant a largish stone into the gap. There was some old house paint in one of the garages, and she was able to carefully pen his name and his birth date. It might wash off after the winter, but keeping up this stone- the first of many- would be a good enough gesture, she figured.

Then, she just sat there for a little bit, wishing she had more to say to Jughead's grave.

"Don't be mad, Juggie," She said, speaking to 'him' for the first time in what felt like eons, "But I'm sort of over you. That's wrong, I can't be over you. You gotta know I'll always love you, you were my first and that...it means something real to me. But you're not here, and Sweet Pea is. I didn't plan for this to happen, trust me but I…" She exhaled unevenly, "I might be sorta falling in love with him too. But it doesn't matter. He doesn't feel that way for me."

She looked to her left, to the place mentally she thought she might put Archie's stone, "I guess I should be asking him about that. Get some perspective."

She bit the inside of her cheek, patting Jughead's rock, like it was him. The sun warmed it, which helped her do this, say this.

"I just wanted you to know. So that it's fair. You're dead, so maybe it doesn't matter, but I think it does." She finished quietly.

She sat out there another hour, just talking about what they'd done so far. Nothing important. Nothing that she wouldn't talk to Veronica or her mother about. She wrote in her journal daily still, because it was even more important than ever to chart occurrences, but this felt more casual. Like she was discussing things with a friend. It felt nice to just chat it out sometimes.

By the time she returned, the sky was starting to darken.

"You ok?"

"That tree," Betty began, having held it together perfectly fine until she heard Sweet Pea's tone, "The one to the left, you know? That's where we'll, uh," She wiped her nose on her sleeve, pointing backwards, "That's our memorial. You'll see what I did. Do it for others, on their birthday. It's how we'll remember."

"Like a graveyard?"

"No, there's no bodies." Saying facts helped Betty calm down, "Just a memorial."

"Oh. Okay, sure." Sweet Pea twiddled his thumbs, "It's nice."

Betty bit her lip hard.

"You didn't answer my question," Sweet Pea murmured, voice low.

"I'm fine. I've been fine," Betty insisted, "But thank you."

Sweet Pea looked at her hard for a second, before shrugging. His reply's words were casual, but his tone was soft.

"Anytime, Coop."

XXxxXX

_October 9th, 2018_

One week later, on Sweet Pea's birthday, Betty woke up early. She slipped into the kitchen and heated some water for her tea. They were triple, and even quadruple re-using tea bags, since it was now a finite number. It meant her morning English Breakfast tea today was more water than flavor, sort of like an unfizzy and hot La Croix, but it had become a pattern that she enjoyed.

Betty padded out to their porch, long sleeves of her cardigan wrapped around the mug, peering outside. The day was practically foggy. It looked like someone had draped a veil over the landscape, casting gothic shadows over the fields and forests. It felt like the inside of a scary horror movie, like that if someone was filming their journey and wanted to set the tone, today's weather would be perfect.

She doubted they'd get much work done today outside. No way was she letting Sweet Pea work the fields, since she could hardly see a foot in front of her. If a walker came upon him, he'd never see it.

No matter, they had things to do inside. And, since it was Sweet Pea's birthday, it seemed fair they took it easy.

She sipped her tea until it was gone before setting to work.

She was going to make breakfast today, as a gesture of good will. They had things to make pancakes, and little chocolate chips. Besides, some of the materials would go bad if they didn't use these within the month, thus it became a logical choice to splurge on breakfast today.

She sneaked the plates onto the table right as Sweet Pea stumbled into the main room, yawning.

"Happy birthday," She said quietly, waiting for a response as he just blinked at the spread. She remembered how against he'd been telling her his birthday, about the man comments that had followed. She was all ready to explain to him why this wasn't going too far out of the way, or give a bullet point list of the reasons-

Then, his face split into a grin.

"Awe, Coop. You didn't have to."

"You're 18," Betty said, "You're an adult, Sweets. Plus, you gave me a birthday."

Sweet Pea sat down, licking his lip, "Sorta. I peer-pressured you into drinking a vat of champagne that would have gone bad otherwise."

"It wasn't nothing. Thought that counts?"

"This is way better," Sweet Pea said, mouth full of pancake.

After, and convincing Sweet Pea it was foolish to venture outside, they began their work for the day at a casual pace.

Mid-morning was spent setting up the mouse-traps all around the house in preparation for furry and unwelcome visitors when the weather dropped. They argued whether it was worth it to eat the animals they caught.

"Does the Bubonic Plague mean anything to you?" Betty argued.

"They got it from bites and shit, not from eating mice and rats," Sweet Pea snorted.

"I'm just saying, we shouldn't spend long amounts with that sort of vermin." Betty huffed.

When the perimeter was properly dotted with traps, they went around and sprayed bug-away and insect killer around the entrances too, since Betty had begun to stumble upon one too many spiders inside for her comfort.

The last part of the day was spent charting their hunting supplies. They had plans starting in the next few days to begin to hunt their meat for winter. Sweet Pea was overly excited for this, in Betty's opinion.

"My family hadn't really been hunters," Betty had said, turning up her nose.

"Uhm, your dad was a serial killer."

"Okay, animal hunters." Betty felt a tinge of annoyment to be reminded, "I'm sure as hell not a serial killer."

"We'll never know," Sweet Pea said, carefully counting arrows, "The world ended. You could kill me, but that wouldn't get you very far."

XXxxXX

By the time the sky darkened, they were prepared to hunt; arrows and knives laid out and sharpened, bows checked for faults, bags prepared to store the meat, and rope to drag big game back. They also had their traps cleaned of walker guts to lay out, since now they'd be trying to catch food over walkers. They discussed strategically putting their spear pits in places where there was animal traffic, and started talking about carving daily time out to check it.

With their list completed, they decided it was only fair to play a board game as the end to a quiet birthday.

" _Risk_  and  _Monopoly_  are more fun with at least three," Sweet Pea said, arms crossed in front of the cabinet with 'fun things'. Betty mimicked his stance, head tilted.

"Card game?"

"My favorite,  _BS,_  is better with a group," Sweet Pea said. They quietly scanned the array of board games.

"Here's one that just needs two," Betty pulled out a box, " _Pandemic_. Appropriate."

"Maybe a little too much so," Sweet Pea winced, "Hell, let's try it. Maybe we'll have a leg up because we're living through one."

As they sat cross-legged on the floor, board in front of them, munching on a handful each of the mini chocolate kisses, it reminded Betty of a former family night with her mother, father, and Polly.

She said as much to Sweet Pea.

"My 'family' board games always ending in screaming and fighting," He said.

"Oh, one of  _those_  families."

"The Peabody's were very passionate about  _Settlers of Catan_ ," Sweet Pea said, and she didn't think he was joking, "And later, with the Serpents...I mean, no one was more ready to throw a punch over a  _Sorry_  betrayal."

"This brining back traumatic memories?" Betty teased.

"I stopped offering to play early on," Sweet Pea waved a hand away, "I didn't have that time for the drama. Toni loved it. Cheryl too, later. I think they would purposely pick fights in the games. Stupid, in my opinion."

"What would the Serpents have done for your birthday?" Betty asked, laying down a card.

"Get me drunk, probably. Maybe pull together money for some hand-me-down gift. I'd probably get another tattoo, now that it was 'legal'."

Betty spied his two visible tattoos; the one on his neck and the one on his finger, "Yeah, clearly someone didn't care much about that."

"It would have been expected, not surprising. I like this." Sweet Pea said honestly, "Feels real. Maybe Toni n' Fangs woulda done something more personable, like maybe we woulda gone to batting cages or seen a movie, but that would have been asking a lot."

"Oh!" Betty sat up, "One second."

She went into her room, coming out with a carefully wrapped package. She'd used plastic bags for her wrapping paper.

"It's not much, but I mean, you're 18." She said.

Sweet Pea opened it with care and chuckled.

"Really?"

He held up a folded sheet of lottery cards.

"Might have snagged it from a rest stop. It's what we did at Riverdale High. Drove people it on their 18th to try for a couple bucks. I tried to find a voting sticker, since you can- could-vote too, but no dice."

"If I scratch this off and find like I won $200, I'mma be so upset, Cooper," Sweet Pea said.

"We could try to go back and rob a gas station, if it will make it more real," Betty offered.

"I might hold you to that. I'll want my pennies," Sweet Pea chortled, using his thumb to start scratching. When that provided unsatisfactory and slow, he fished out a lone quarter from the old tenant's junk drawer.

"You know," Sweet Pea said, "It's ironic that people use money to scratch off sheets to see if they win more money. It's an instrument and a prize."

"Have you always been this philosophical?"

Sweet Pea flopped onto his back, scratching the sheets above his face.

"Dunno if you heard, but the world sort of ended. I have a lot of free time on my hands," He replied back, sending a wry grin her way.

In the end, out of the six sheets Betty managed to snag (and, she theorized most people had looted these early on, thinking for some reason that they'd be able to cash these in if the world went right again) Sweet Pea only managed to make about twenty-eight dollars.

"Well, that will cover the cost of the sheets-theoretically- and you might have some money left over for a McFlurry," Betty winced, "Damn. When Polly turned 18, we got her just one and she won $150."

"You're joking," Sweet Pea moaned, letting the sheets flutter onto his face.

"No! I guess you're just unlucky or something."

Sweet Pea sat up slowly, an unreadable expression on his face. He swallowed hard for a moment. Before Betty could ask why the long face, he put on a warm smile.

"Yeah, guess so. It was a fun idea. I bet it you scratched 'em off, it would have been more."

"The monetary value wouldn't have changed," Betty argued logically, "I would have been just as broke."

"I think that magically it would have been different."

"Oh yes," Betty gave a obvious roll of her eyes, "You believe in magic and superstitions and fate and all," She gave a wiggle of her fingers, "Your probably believe ever ghost story out there."

"That's what makes them scary and makes them fun. Don't ask to hear any because it will terrify you for weeks afterward." He warned.

Betty sat back on her haunches, "Sure. I'll keep that in mind."

She paused, looking over her cards.

"Sweets?"

"Hmm," He said, using the lotto cards to make paper airplanes.

"Was this a good birthday for you?"

She didn't say it, but after the disaster with Jughead and their whole fight about it months ago, she sort of really needed this confirmation. There was a long pause and she feared the worst, that he was going to get mad at even the small work she'd done to try to make it seem like it wasn't at the end of society.

"Yeah, Betts. It was a good one. One of the best I can remember. Top five, easily."

Whether he truly meant that or was just saying it to be kind, he said it anyway. Betty liked to believe he meant it.

XXxxXX

_October 12th, 2018_

Betty missed the warm nights of summer, where it was almost enjoyable to leave the window open to catch a breeze coming across the moon, when she would lay on the thick comforter and sleep comfortably in just a tank and a pair of sports shorts.

It was easier then, she decided, easier to keep their space. While they didn't have an actual pillow barrier, somehow being on top of the sheets felt less like their bed as more like a place to sleep. And there was, she wanted to make clear, a difference.

Plus, in the summer, they'd each claimed throw blankets to pull over their bodies if they felt chilly. Betty had brought her favorite blanket from home all the way here, and wasn't about to give it up, even if someone offered her a million dollars for it.

Not sure why someone would want a million dollars for her blanket, but she digressed.

It had been bought at Hot Topic or Target way back when, and it featured a full-size still of her favorite childhood movie,  _Ponyo_  from Miyazaki. When she'd gotten it as a present, it had been fluffier than a puppy's fur. Now, years past, it was matted and a little grimey looking, but it still smelled like home. Even after all these months, it smelled familiar.

Sweet Pea had just found one of the many throw blankets in the house. It was woolen and apparently all the way from Mount Rushmore, woven with Native American patterns and little buffalos.

Point being, they had their own blankets, they stayed on their side.

As of late, however, the cool weather had sent them under the covers. They had come to the agreement it was foolish to burn wood so early, when only the nights were chilly and all it took was a trip under the covers to fix it. Plus, some warmer PJs. So, as intimate as it felt sleeping under the covers with Sweet Pea was, it was the smart choice.

This is what Betty continued to tell herself. This is what she told herself all the times she thought about how domestic this felt, and how badly she wanted this domesticity with Sweet Pea. This is what she told herself when she had the urge to reach out and stroke his cheek or curl into his arms that looked so very welcoming.

Often, Betty fell asleep right away. She was usually so tired from the day's events that she slipped into dreamland without any worry. It was something she was unused to, since in Riverdale, she usually had to go through a long destress regimen to relax herself enough to close her eyes without the thousand of things she had to do running through her brain.

Ever since they started regularly pulling back the covers to sleep, though, she'd run into the same troubles. Although, of late, her thoughts swirling around her head were not about what needed to be done, but of the tall, dark, and handsome Serpent sleeping inches away from her.

She was going through their food cellar in her mind to keep herself occupied until she fell asleep. It was sort of like counting sheep, just as dry and dull.

She decided that the utter darkness and silence of summer nights was more acceptable than winter nights. The heavy cover of just ebony in front of her, coupled with only the noises of their breathing to interrupt the space, felt sort of unreal. Sort of like a movie, or a good memory.

This same conditions but with a coldness that made her toes itch and her nose slightly runny? Not quite as easily romanticized.

She screwed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep, when she heard it.

A high-pitched moaning sound that she was sure would haunt her dreams for the rest of her days.

The eerie sound echoed around the empty house, lingering and wavering out, leaving Betty's heart thumping hard.

Without thinking about it, Betty slapped her hand out, grabbing Sweet Pea's fingers under the covers. The sudden contact made him jump, and he swiped his knife off the bedside table, eyes wide and panting.

"What, what is it?"

"I…" Betty whispered, "There's a sound. It just…" She suddenly felt very stupid for grabbing his hand.

"Oh, hey, no worries," He said.

There was a moment of stillness in which Betty nearly unweaved her fingers from his, but then the sound came again.

Betty stiffened completely, pressing herself against the mattress.

It was haunting, as she just lay silent, not even breathing. Sort of melancholy, like the sound of a wailing woman who had just learned her lover had died. It was the sound of someone in deep mourning. Maybe what simultaneously terrified and saddened Betty was this realization that maybe why it sent her white as a sheet, other than the surprise of noise piercing the air, was that she felt it on such a deep, emotional level. She didn't know if she was choking back tears because it scared her or because she felt the song of whatever this was at her core.

"It's a loon," Sweet Pea whispered quietly, "I'm surprised you've never heard one before."

"It's so...chilling," Betty murmured back, as though any sound above a whisper would make it stop. A part of her didn't want it to end.

"Yeah."

Betty rolled over next to Sweet Pea, her fingers locked in his.

"Go to sleep," Sweet Pea said, pulling her a little closer. Not close enough to cradle her against him, but close enough so that it was extremely comfortable for their hands to remain in one another's. Whether he knew he was doing it or not, his thumb started to rub soft circles over the back of her hand.

They pretty much never slept face to face. It was always backs to each other, or one person looking at the other's back. And, under the covers, it felt almost naughty. If Betty just reached her socked foot out an inch to the left, she might tickle against his shin.

He didn't seem like he was going to let go of her hand any time soon. Betty, starved for not only contact in general, but his, wasn't going to be the one to withdraw first.

She inched her pillow a little closer, only tensing as the loon wailed again, but otherwise less freaked out. Sweet Pea offered a smile that was so tender it hurt. He squeezed her hand.

"Sleep," He commanded quieter, "I got you."

Betty had no trouble drifting off with his promise lingering in the recess of her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ok, ok, so usually I'm the first to HATE stupid miscommunications between couples, but here, it was just too perfect. Because, in my original storyplot, they aren't supposed to kiss for a little bit still. And, because certain things hinge on that, I had to make a reason to 'push it back'. Plus, this story loves some good angst, right? Besides, now the story moves into something even better...Unresolved Sexual Tension!
> 
> *If you want to read more about the Serpent, Lann, check out my other Riverdale story Blood of My Blood, Flesh of My Flesh!
> 
> *So, if you guys have never heard a loon sound before, they are straight up terrifying! I mean, I've come to also like them because I grew up around lakes, but for sure if you had no idea, you'd think someone was being murdered or something... If you look up 'Voices: Common Loon' by Cornell Lab of Orinthology on Youtube, you'll get what I mean
> 
>  
> 
> Until next time!


	13. Track 12: Do You Realize?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have two stories going that I update once a month, and the 'date' for the other one is the 12th. I thought both that one and this one were on the 12th, I forgot this one was on the 5th. Oops. That explains the latenes...

_October 17th, 2018_

Betty didn't even breathe as she lowered herself down on the foliage of the forest, ducking her head under a branch and moving her foot so carefully as not to snap a twig. Holding an exhale on the other side of her lips, she drew back the bow inch by inch, never blinking as she focused all of her energy on the deer in front of her. It was huge; a buck. The antlers on it alone were bigger than her arm span.

She could imagine how gleeful she'd feel if the first deer they bagged was one she got. It was only going to work if she made this shot, and if she made it well. Otherwise, Sweets would never let her live it down if she missed it.

She waited until the majestic animal padded a little bit closer. She leaned forward, angling the bow and using her chin as a anchor. She tried to remember all the things that Cheryl had taught her so many months ago, at Lodge Lodge, and all of her own tips she'd picked up while practicing.

The animal turned its head, its eyes shining and bright. One part of Betty hated killing an animal as beautiful and regal looking as this, and it brought back memories of  _Bambi_ traumatizing her, but her grumbling stomach reminded her of the more important things in life.

Like, well, food.

She sent a prayer up to anyone that would listen moments before she let the bow go.

The  _twang_ resonated, reaching her ears and the ears of the buck, but not fast enough for either to make any sort of move. The arrow went right through the deer's throat, embedding itself deeply, causing blood to spray upon the decaying leaves below its hoofs. It took off, startled and in pain, and Betty ran after it, whistling to Sweet Pea to indicate the animal was on the move.

Sweet Pea, who was keep watch a safe distance away, broke into a sprint with Betty. He managed to keep up with the deer better than Betty, but it wasn't going to last long. It was bleeding all across the forest and it wasn't long before Betty caught up to them. Sweet Pea had grabbed the buck and was holding it steady, and it was too weak to fight it's way out. Sweet Pea's entire shirt was saturated with blood as he pressed himself against it.

"Little help?"

He could have killed it himself, had he gotten the right angle, but Betty thought maybe he was waiting for her. Letting her do the killing blow.

She sunk her knife into it's brain. It slumped to the ground, Sweet Pea jumping back, as not to fall under the weight of the fur.

It probably was in pain before it died, Betty thought, looking at the blood running down the neck, as she extracted the weapons. A clean shot would have been right through the eyes. This wasn't a clean shot.

It was, however, a shot.

This was the first time a deer had stumbled across their path they'd been able to kill. They'd both been practicing against the side of the barn, sending arrows to a crudely painted bullseye when they had a moment to spare. Guns were too loud. Traps were only good if they were lucky. Knives were too close range.

They were going out daily now, ever since the temperatures in nights had dropped. A week ago, Betty noticed sometimes that when the sun dipped below the horizon, she could see her breathe.

When she pointed this out to Sweet Pea, he'd said 'Winter is Coming'. She'd only raised an eyebrow. She may been a geek, but Sweet Pea was a nerd.

They always went together. One notched the arrow and hunted, the other stood guard.

They were evenly matched in who was the better hunter.

Sweet Pea had experience. He'd hunted before, with good success, with guns. Arrows was a new experience for him. His strength also topped Betty's. When he sent an arrow flying, it could go right through an animal.

His biggest problem was that he was impatient. It. wasn't in Sweet Pea's nature to stay still for longer than a minute or so, even when trying his best. He would undoubtedly shift, and his large stature would cause a crinkle of leaves or breaking a branch. With something like a deer, that took utmost quiet and patience, he hadn't managed that yet.

Usually, he'd alert whatever animal he was stalking and hastily shot the bow, not caring much about accuracy but hoping to blindly hit something instead.

Betty, on the other hand, knew all about biding one's time, about shutting her body down and just sitting...waiting.

She may not have the man-power that Sweets did, but she was willing to sit for hours until a deer passed by.

But her aim was awful. When Sweet Pea actually tried, his shots were near impeccable. Betty almost never had it hit quite where she was aiming, though she hit a good number. Enough to not be regaled immediately to 'watch' while Sweet Pea hunted. They took that job evenly.

Overall, they weren't the worst hunters out there.

Unskilled, Sweet Pea had corrected. Through the winter and into next year, they'd get better by practice. One day, they might even be as good as Cheryl.

Sweet Pea handed off his kills of the day to Betty as he began to tie up the deer to take back. Betty cleaned her arrow, putting it back, before taking the rope holding three rabbits and a fowl. Every animal was one more meal they'd get in winter. They were going to have to be mighty creative with their spices, Betty considered, since otherwise it would start to be pretty one-note.

Sweet Pea dragged the buck back, which Betty was grateful for. That thing looked like it weighed a ton. She was thrilled to imagine how much meat they could get off of it.

"Congrats," Sweet Pea said, nudging her shoulder, "On this."

"I got lucky," Betty shrugged.

Back at their house, they drug their kills into one of the detached garages, where they stored meat. Sweet Pea put down the tarp, brandishing a knife. Betty had never gotten comfortable with watching Sweet Pea gut an animal, which was strange, for she watched walker guts spill out all over and never got squeamish. It was something about knowing that this animal had been sentient, whereas walkers were just animated corpses.

She digressed.

She stuck around with him, though, on a stool nearby, watching him take out the innards and place them in buckets. Eating a deer's guts might have sounded gross once, but Betty would be upset if they didn't utilize every inch of this gift they'd been granted.

"You know," sweet Pea said, sitting back on his haunches, wiping sweat from his forehead, "It's a tradition that on your first deer kill, you're supposed to eat the heart."

"What?"

"You heard me," Sweet Pea was grinning. He fished around in the rib cage, taking out a bloody organ, "A-La-Game of Thrones. Just take a big bite out of it."

"Ew."

"I'm serious! It's totally something people do."

"That's unsanitary," Betty scrunched up her nose, "I'll take your congrats, but I'm not eating that. Don't you remember what happened when Daenerys ate that heart? She lost her baby."

"Dany lost her baby because she made that agreement with that witch doctor lady." Sweet Pea said like it was so clear she was wrong.

"In the show, sure. In reality, it was probably from eating an uncooked heart. Science." Betty threw up her hands. She gave a deep sigh, "I will meet you halfway. I don't want to waste any of the deer, so we'll cook it. Okay?" She gave him a sharp look.

"Fine," he pouted, "If you want to be a baby about it."

She was offended, but ignored him.

"I just realized," Sweet Pea said, making a horrified noise, "We're never gunna find out the ending to Game of Thrones."

"Oh, yeah, the last season was supposed to air next year, right?"

"Damn it," Sweet Pea sunk the knife into the deer, so upset he had to pause, "This is going to fucking kill me."

"We'll also never see the second Infinity Wars movie or the last Star Wars," Betty said after a second.

"Are you trying to make my cry?" Sweet Pea pouted.

"Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you just make up your own ending?"

"No," Sweet Pea guffawed, "I mean, half the time I hate what they do with stuff, but it's nice knowing what's 'canon'. That's a lost cause now. You think that if, like George R.R. Martin is kicking around somewhere, he'd tell his travel companions how it was supposed to end?"

"Suddenly regretting having me as your travel partner?" Betty giggled.

"A little," He said, but was grinning, completely in a way that made her heart thud, "You can't tell me who wins the Iron Throne."

"I hope it's Ned. He seems like a nice guy."

Sweet Pea squinted, "How far have you seen?"

"A few episodes. I feel asleep during a lot. I wasn't too into it. And I am very offended you are re-thinking your choices," She teased.

"Hey, c'mon now," He stood, coming up to her, "Just joshing you. Wouldn't trade you for anyone."

Betty, unable to think of a witty reply, noticed now close he was to her. He had sent one hand on the counter behind Betty, caging her into him, close to his chest.

"Really?" She asked, her tone completely serious.

Sweet Pea blinked, notching the shift in her tone. He too dropped his teasing expression, just for a moment. His adam's apple bobbed.

"Not even for Toni or Fangs?" She regretted the question the moment she asked it. How awful, to make him decide between his chosen family and her? For a girl he'd known less than a year in any serious way.

He didn't answer. Betty groaned, rubbing her hands over her face.

"Ignore That last bit. I didn't mean-,"

"No." The words fell over hers, a sharp and quick and very firm negation.

"No you're not going to ignore it?" Betty peaked between her fingers.

"No, I wouldn't trade you, even if it got me Fangs or Toni," He said, now sounding less sure as he explained it out. He was blushing.

"You're joking, right?" Betty whispered, "I mean, Fangs is like your brother. I'm just Betty."

Sweet Pea put his other hand on the counter behind her, his jaw tightening.

"Just Betty? You have no fucking idea, do you?" He asked, his laugh throaty and raw and like the sound of two wires sparking. Betty forgot how to breathe for a moment, and when the ability returned to her, it was like her mouth had been filled with cotton.

Betty's eyes flickered to his. She held it, his stormy chocolate eyes boring holes deep into her. He seemed to vibrate with energy, as though holding himself back.

She had two million thoughts going through her head right now, and all of them were dirty, dark, sexy things. She thought about how she wanted to kiss those lips, bit them between her own and lick all the day down his throat. She thought of how, if she wrapped her legs around his and pulled him closer, he'd sit perfectly in between her thighs. She thought about how they could go, fast and filthy, on the stool with the carcass of a deer inches away.

"Your shirt is disgusting," It was the only thing she could say that was decent. If she didn't say anything, she'd fear she'd say one of those other things. Of course, there was so much more behind just her statement. She thought about how she hated getting blood out of clothes, and how a good method hadn't been determined. She thought about how favorite shirts of hers had to be more or less burned after they were covered in walker guts. She thought about how, out of all of Sweet Pea's shirts, she would hate to throw this one away. The way it hugged his body was just so...awful and wonderful. It was tight enough to show the abs that he still retained, that it clung to his shoulders and made him seem godly. It left little to Betty's imagination, which caused the days he wore it to cause a mixture of stress and enjoyment for Betty.

Sweet Pea bit his lip in careful thought. His fingers played with the hem of his shirt, lifting it enough so that Betty could see a sliver of pale flesh underneath it. Was he going to take it off? Crap; she didn't think she could resist if that happened.

In a flash, she set her own hands underneath her body, sitting on them, as not to let her wandering fingers begin to undress him.

Sweet Pea's eyes flicker down, just for a second, and saw her action. He inhaled three times, then stepped back.

"I'll finish it up and try to get the shirt in the wash quick. Take the heart, go fry it up. It's distracting to have you here."

Betty felt mildly offended, but snatched up the organ between her palms. She sent one last look at Sweet Pea, stretched across the once mighty animal, and tried to keep her own heart inside her rib cage.

If Sweet Pea was aware of her internal struggle, he didn't seem it.

XXxxXX

_October 22nd, 2018_

If there was one thing Betty hated most in this world, it was waiting. As a Journalist, having her sources reply back to her quickly, and organizing herself in a similar manner, was of paramount importance. There was nothing in this world Betty liked more than something that came announced, on-time, and with little delay.

Online grading was awful for Betty. She'd been shoved off the computer more than once by Polly in her years, refreshing the online grade book over and over and over, waiting for a teacher to input her scores. Before that, back in middle school? Betty would be the first one in the room after a big test, and she favored teachers who got scores back after a weekend.

Point being, Betty believed in the idea of things coming at their natural times and being able to be properly prepared.

Winter in New York often came on schedule, or, at least in Riverdale it did. In late October, the coldness would drop in, by the third week of November there was dusting of snow, always a white Christmas, and then things would clear up mid-March.

Wisconsin was on no such time table.

She could feel it coming. She knew winter was arriving. The weather was playing tricks with them; it would be almost comfortable one day, cloudy and cold the next, and then it would get colder. Betty would count their food and check the firewood pile and the solar pads, thinking that yes, this was it. Then, it would warm up again and her anxiety would be for naught.

In all, it was making her cranky.

Sweet Pea, who was a bundle of chaos, seemed not to be bothered by this. His desk area was strewn of papers and notes, so this hardly surprised her. He probably noticed her grouchy snappish attitude, but he seemed to know better than to poke the beast.

Her hyper-attention to making sure that when things got cold and stayed cold lended itself as a hearty distraction. Most nights now, Betty was gnawing her fingernails under her blankets, and hoping they wouldn't freeze to death instead of imaging Sweet Pea with no clothes on.

What comes does come when Betty is not expecting it at all is the number one thing she had been semi-glad hadn't appeared frequently at all; her period.

In fact, it's been a blessing that she hasn't had to think about it much of late. If she was with Jughead, and they would obviously be having sex, maybe it would be different. Maybe that would be another added layer of stress, worried she was pregnant every time her period didn't show up. But, since Betty hadn't been laid in months, her lack of a period was on the very back of her worries and concerns.

She spotted on occasion for a handful of days, usually darker blood that told her it was old, but on the whole, she hasn't really had her period since the first month of the apocalypse.

Betty isn't surprised. She knows enough about her own health to know that the combination of her unintentional fasting, suspiciously un-nutritious diet, and constant worry has probably done a number on her body, mainly that of stopping her period. Her period was never 'regular' to begin with, but the strain placed on her womanly bits have just made the bloody bastard disappear entirely.

Maybe she should have been looking out for this more. They're in a place where food comes at least with consistency, although not in quantity, she's having protein on a regular basis, and for the most part, she's not stressed out of her mind anymore. It still startles her to see such a heavy flow one morning, and immediately, she sort of wishes it was gone again.

She hasn't really considered what she's going to do if her periods do become regular again. It seems like a huge waste to use tampons and pads, especially since Betty can go through nearly half a box on a really bad week of her period. When it was somewhat regular, near the end of her last year of school, she was getting it closer to every three weeks than every four weeks. This, she decides, is a consideration she doesn't want to have to be thinking about, not with everything else.

But, she buckles down and takes it like a woman. She knows her first day of her period is her worst, so she sacrifices two Advils to combat the oncoming cramps and headaches, starts to clean off her clothes, and goes about her day.

It's not an issue until the end of her cycle.

She doesn't mention it outright to Sweet Pea. Seems like a strange thing to bring up, and he might be grossed out by it. Jughead was always a little put off when she brought it up. Sure, it was just woman's bodies and sure it was normal, but frankly, Betty didn't like talking about it to other people either. To have old blood dispelled from her was a sorta yuck thing. It certainly left things messy.

Point being, Sweet Pea has probably walked around this whole week unaware, Betty thought.

She had taken to using tampons for the worst two days of her period, and then white cloth bits the rest, bits she would systematically bleach. She had decided to put two of her worst pairs of underwear to the job as ugly period underwear, and at the end of her cycle she sat in the bathroom (currently, with no running water, but a place for a sink and water in the tub that wasn't sanitized for drinking) and washed out her pair. It was only once this pair was thoroughly soaked with water and a little bit of bleach, she realized she hadn't brought her normal pair with her into the bathroom. She hadn't known today she'd end her cycle, and in the excitement and relief of having a glorious near-three weeks blood free, she'd taken off her underwear to wash immediately.

So, now she was underwearless.

She was wearing a dress, and her bedroom was across the house. Not an ungodly length to walk commando, but something Betty wasn't comfortable doing. She never felt comfortable commando, whereas Veronica had talked about that 'freeing feeling' far too often for Betty. Either way, she could put back on her soaked and damp underwear, wait in the bathroom for them to dry, or just it up and walk out into the house.

By matter of necessity and the idea of putting damp underwear back on seeming totally uncomfortable, Betty rolled her eyes at her own paranoia and walked outside.

Or, rather, walked briskly.

Perhaps a little too briskly, because she pretty much ran  _right_ into Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea, who had been clearly shoving around boxes or something downstairs, or maybe working out and chopping wood, because he was sweaty. And shirtless.

And Sweet Jesus…

Betty didn't think about sex or sex things while on her period. It was just too bloody down there, like the scene of a bad murder, for her to even consider such things.

The moment she was off her period, though?

"Woah, woah," Sweet Pea said, throwing his shirt over his shoulder, steadying Betty, "What's got your panties in a twist?" He asked, grinning. He maneuvered her back, so that she was close to a wall, patting her shoulder to walk past her, his other arm steadying her.

"Phrasing-," Betty couldn't help but stutter out, wondering if he somehow knew, or if God up there thought this was just some big cosmic joke to him. With most of the population dead, it probably was, and maybe Betty was the most interesting person to fuck with, she thought with a hint of anger and embarrassment. Sweet Pea paused his movement, turning his attention back to her.

"Hey, you okay? You're pretty flushed," Sweet Pea's hands were still on her arms. Betty couldn't look at his face. So she looked down.

Big mistake.

She could see the 'v' of his hips, the way his jeans hung off him, the bulge down there that might or might not have been his member, but God a part of Betty hoped it sort of was and then- and then she realized that she was just staring so blatantly at him, all the while getting wet herself, standing here in front of him with just a flimsy dress between him and her own nakedness.

Christ.

"Betty?" Sweet Pea's voice was tinged with humor, in a way that made her feel even warmer.

"I...was going to the bedroom, to," She swallowed.  _Find an excuse_ , she told herself,  _just say anything to get out of this moment before you do something you'll regret_ , "Well, because I'm not wearing underwear so I need to grab another pair."

Okay, so telling him the truth had  _not_ been on her shortlist of ideas she thought was a good one. She actually wasn't sure what had compelled her brain to form that sentence or her lips to speak it. She wasn't sure what part of her anatomy had betrayed her more, but she immediately screwed up her face in a wince, sure her face was approximately the color of a plum right about now.

Silence. When she opened her eyes to see Sweet Pea suck in hard.

His eyes flickered down, not as though he could see anything, but his face was almost unreadable.

Almost, except for a dark look that seemed to overtake his pupils.

"Really? Seems irresponsible to be running around without underwear on in the middle of an apocalypse," His words were lighthearted and teasing, but his tone was sexy and rough, just the way that made a whole shiver run up her body.

"Well, I," Betty fumbled, her voice a hair above a whisper, "Don't you go commando like half the time?"

When Sweet Pea shot Betty his grin, it was downright sexy. It made her legs quake a little.

"And how would you know that?" He asked, a chuckle finding its way from his mouth. She hadn't known, she'd been guessing. But from the way his head tipped, she got the acute confirmation that he was currently wearing no underwear under his jeans.

And the fact that they were both standing there, and if they both took off their clothes they'd be one step closer to having sex, caused Betty to more or less melt into a quivering pile. As her legs started to buckle, Sweet Pea went to catch her, one hand clasping harder around her arm, the other grabbing her at the waist.

He was inches from her. Somehow, he'd pressed her against the wall, and crowded closer, maybe to pull her against him if she actually did do something as totally embarrassing as fainting.

Betty met his eyes. She couldn't stop looking now, watching the minuscule changes on his face.

He knew how deftly he held her attention, because he bit his lip, as though considering something. She nearly jumped out of her skin as on of his hands began tracing lightly down her leg, just a finger ghosting across the top of her dress. It paused right below the hem. For a second, Betty realized she couldn't have predicted what was going on in Sweet Pea's head, or what his next action was, but he placed his hand on her lower thigh, the top of his palms brushing the end of the fabric of her dress.

A breath hitched in her throat.

This seemed to please Sweet Pea, because his lips part just a smidge, just enough so that when he breathes out and in, Betty can almost feel the tension that he holds. He swipes his tongue over his lips, and Betty finds she copies the movement on her own lips.

His hand moves up.

Just an inch, but enough so that now his hand is under her dress.

She's never thought about how large his hands were, not until they were splayed across her thigh now, curling around her skin, leaving fire tingling wherever it touched.

His eyes focus hard on hers as it continues upward.

He has reached her hip. It seemed almost cruel in the way he was deliberate so that his hand curled more toward the back of her, than the front. His thumb brushes over her hip bone, exactly where the fabric of underwear would be if she had any on. He seems to be thinking the same thing. His other fingers are around the back of her figure, his fingernails digging lightly into the back of her ass.

Betty wonders if she presses forward if he'd be hard, if she could feel the heat from him on her, if it would cause her to lose any sense of logic. She imagines slipping her dress over her head in a sleek movement, she imagines her fingers fumbling with his belt buckle and shoving his jeans down his legs, an she imagines pulling him up against her.

She, honestly, is super-super turned on right now.

Sweet Pea's hand starts to move toward the front of her again, and now his hands are right next to her center, the only other people who have ever gotten so close down in this area being Jughead and her own hand. If he just reaches out a millimeter, he'll feel how slick she is. Betty is still focused on his eyes, and makes a small whining noise in the back of her throat. Her hips buck up, just a bit, and she is another moment away from begging Sweet Pea to continue forward, to press his fingers up into her.

There is the sound of cans clanking and immediately both are drawn out of their trance. Sweet Pea runs to the window and cusses.

"A walker made it through. Go put underwear on, I'll deal with this," He says, grabbing a knife off the table and thundering out the door before Betty can protest or do otherwise.

He's gone a while; she does not see him kill the walker, but he has to drag it off their property, or at least the general area.

She wonders if he's avoiding her.

When he comes back in, he says nothing of what nearly just happened, so Betty does not either. They just got caught up in the moment, right? Good thing they hadn't, she thinks, because people do stupid things when they're horney, which she imagines Sweet Pea is equally so as her. It might seem like the logical thing to perhaps offer a friends-with-benefits situation, but Betty thinks overall, if things go downhill, it would just be so awkward and bad in the house.

Yes, strictly celibate friends it is.

Still, that moment remains lodged in her subconscious, and she plays through it when she's alone, because everytime she does, she feels the unquenchable embers lighting deep in her stomach. It's enough to provide her with a mental imagine that she brings herself to completion on later that night, crying out against her palm, as she imagines what might have happened if that walker had not stopped them.

XXxxXX

_October 24th, 2018_

One day, Betty gets her name.

Her nickname, that is. Rather, Sweet Pea announces it to her.

Well, announces is saying a bit much of it. It's about as unceremonious as one can get. He doesn't give a bow and deliver it on a silver platter or something, nor does he even tell Betty that's what it is. And to say that he'd been waiting to spring it on her might be overstating it too. If he has been, it's only been for a week. Sweet Pea has never been good at keeping secrets or withholding pleasure...and this for sure gives him some gleeful sense of joy that Betty is still glad he has.

Probably, she thinks, he settled on it just a day or two ago. She doesn't think he's been taking this un-seriously, no, not that. She just knows Sweet Pea well enough that when he was 100% on her all-important nickname, he'd release it.

It came ever-so casually. So casually that Betty, at first, thought he was sneezing or having a stroke or something.

They were trying to figure out a meal plan for the winter. Sweet Pea wanted a highlighter; his favorite color, specifically, a weird purple one that Betty thought was a pretty shitty highlighter to begin with. It was sorta just a maker to her, since it wasn't exactly fluorescent, but it was totally within Sweet Pea to like that specifically.

"Arianrhod."

At first, Betty just thought he was saying...well, she wasn't sure what he was saying. Song lyrics or something? Point being, she ignored it.

"Arianrhod."

Betty frowned, glancing up at him, nose scrunched up. He'd just said that, hadn't he? Sweet Pea was looking at her...expectantly?

She raised an eyebrow.

"Arianrhod, the purple one, please," He said, extending his hand out, speaking very specifically. Betty tongued the inside of her cheek, chuckling.

"You okay, Sweets? Are you...sneezing?" She knows he's saying the same word, but she couldn't tell you what that word is.

"No, Arianrhod, I'm not."

Betty tilted her head. She frowned.

Then, she understood.

"Oh!" She breathed out, grinning, "Is that it? My totally awesome protagonist name?" She asked.

"Yeah, yeah, it's  _just_ a name, though," Sweet Pea tried to play it off, but he was bouncing with unhinged excitement. She knew he'd picked a few of the former Serpent's names, but there was probably something really special about him picking hers. She just couldn't put it into words, or rather, didn't want to say the words out loud.

Betty paused, "What is my name?"

"I've said it four times."

"No, yeah, I mean…" She waved a hand, "What  _is_ it?" She wasn't even sure if she could pronounce it properly. Couldn't he have picked an easier name?

"Arianrhod," Sweet Pea said slowly. A shiver ran over Betty's skin, raising her goosebumps. When he curled his tongue around the 'r' sound in it, it was downright sinful. There was a certain breathiness to the name too, something that made it her new favorite word to hear him say. It sounded like hers, as she listened intently to the way he said it, and leaned into the pronunciation. As the words settled over her, she felt it was right.

That's how a name should be, though? The feeling that you owned it.

Betty owned this name.

"Okay, 'aaron-rod'?" She asked, trying to move her lips in the same pattern he had, but even as she spoke it, she knew it was a butchered attempt.

Sweet Pea laughed, his tongue flickering out to lick his lips.

"No, no. Not quite. Arainrhod." He said again.

"Air-rain-rod?" She tried again. Sweet Pea nodded.

"Closer."

"Okay, how do you spell it, then?" She asked, frustrated, but had expected nothing less of Sweet Pea. Giving her a name she could actually pronounce or recognized? Far too easy.

"Last freebie," Sweet Pea announced, holding up a finger, finding a scrap piece of paper. In big block letters, lunging across the table for his damned purple highlighter, he wrote 'A-R-I-A-N-R-H-O-D', which is not the way that Betty would have guessed to spell it in a million years. Underneath, wrote 'ari/an/rhod' which she assumed was the pronunciation. He gave the slip of paper to her in a flourish, and Betty carefully folded it to put in her back pocket, to then put in her bedside table.

"Cool. What is an Arianrhod?"

Sweet Pea made an irritating buzzer sound, crossing his arms, "That's now how the game works, Betts."

"What?"

"The game. Duh. You gotta figure out your name; what it means and why I gave it to you. I did give it to you for a reason. I didn't just pluck it from thin air. It has meaning." He said, scoffing, going back to highlight what their actual work was in the first place.

"Okay, okay," Betty aquiested, "What are the rules of the game?" She asked, when it was clear that he wasn't going to offer those up.

Sweet Pea looked up, a wicked smile on his face.

"Oh, Arianrhod, I'm so glad you asked."

Sweet Pea got up, going to their kitchen. Betty watched as he raided the kitchen for a second, before returning with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Betty winced at the sight of it; the last time she'd drank, it hadn't gone well. Or, she assumed it hadn't gone well, that being that she didn't remember any of it. That in itself was a pretty good indicator.

"Every time you want to know anything about the name, you have to take a shot. It used to be a shot of alcohol or a shot of something gross otherwise, like melted butter or tabasco sauce, but since we're saving those alcohol is the only thing we got left. Lucky for you," Sweet Pea said, looking pleased with himself, "Yes or no questions only. When you think you've figured your name out in full, you take a double shot to 'confirm' it."

"That sounds awful," Betty moaned, "Did you have to do that?"

"Well, when I joined, they hadn't made those rules yet. Plus, I already came with a nickname. This is strictly for those that wanted in on the fake-name fun, like Lann or Fangs." Sweet Pea tilted his head, "Fangs found out his name three times, but every time got so drunk he didn't remember the information he'd previously found out."

"That won't be me," Betty said firmly, "Gah, don't we have better stuff than that?"

"Well, we have wine, but that's not a shot," Sweet Pea scoffed, though Betty was a child learning a lesson, "Plus, we want something that can stay open a long time. Knowing you, you won't opt to figure it all out in one night."

Betty stared dubious at the colored liquor.

"No, I won't." She agreed.

"Are you going to do one right now?" Sweet Pea asked, shaking the handle.

Betty frowned, settling her clasped hands under her chin, pulling out the sheet of paper and staring at it in front of her for a long time.

"One," She finally decided, "But I'm going to do this right." She said firmly. She got up, jumping over the multiple books and resources they had scattered around their desk area, going to a cabinet on the far side to grab her notebook. They'd realized that notebooks were going to be a scarce commodity one day, and it was necessary to have records of certain things, such as crops or food- as they were doing now. They couldn't rely on electronics to work forever. Shitty thing about Mac computers, and computers in general, is they were made to be expendable one day, as they made new ones. So, even though it seemed to them now that they'd raided a Staples, there might come a day that they'd be savoring every scrap of paper their way. Therefore, they agreed that per every two years, they'd each get a 'personal notebook' each. They could do whatever they pleased with this notebook; diary, journal, make notes, write love songs...whatever. Betty got hers out. She'd written sparsely in it. She wanted to continue to journal, and did, but not on this. She'd have to figure out a more sustainable way later.

On a new page, she wrote 'Arianrhood' across the top margin. Then, a number '1'. Sweet Pea rolled his eyes.

"Only you, Coop," He said, which told her the name 'Cooper' wasn't being retired, not entirely.

"I'm not going to go through the process more than once," Betty scoffed, "Do I take the shot before or after?"

"I suppose it doesn't matter much."

"Okay, first." She said resolutely. Sweet Pea found a shot-glass, something Betty hadn't even been aware they had. However, it had a deer on it, which told her that maybe it was already present in the house when they'd arrived. It was a corporate retreat, why did they have shot glasses?

Maybe, she thought, the best way to truly bond with co-workers was through roaring parties and heavy drinking. Or maybe it was for the owner to have in between groups, as they cleaned up and wondered what they were doing with their life.

That was too sad. Whoever had owned this place was gone now, probably dead. Or not, and he'd show up here, and then that would be a whole other can of worms.

Or-,

"Stop thinking so hard. You'll pull a muscle," Sweet Pea said.

"I'm not even thinking about the name," Betty admitted after a long second.

"Bottoms up."

Betty looked at the shot with displeasure. She grabbed her water bottle sitting on the counter. Had the world been all good, she would have chased it with soda or something else, but water would have to do. She held her breath and poured it down her throat. Then, she chugged half of her water bottle.

"What is the point of that?"

"Usually, people do multiple questions in one night. It makes every question count. Still does for you, since you have to do that every time you want to know something. Plus, it's just fun to watch."

"I feel like you're bored," Betty grouched.

"A little, thank you for noticing."

"Okay, my question; in all of the books that we have in the house, is the name in one of them."

She wrote the question down as she spoke. If it was, then she just had to search for it. It may take forever (they had a lot of books, and maybe she'd take a couple more shots in later days to narrow it down), but she could find it. If he said no, it was going to take a whole lot longer to figure this out.

Sweet Pea smiled. For a second, she feared he was going to say 'no', just to irk her. Just to make this so much harder. She had never wished for the internet as much as she did right now.

"Yes, Arianrhod, it is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello good people!  
> As you can see, we're moving into some of that delicious unresolved sexual tension territory. I even tried to find a name of a song that was that, or a song about UST, but to no avail. if you find one or have one lemme know! There are lots more of these sexy chapters ;)
> 
> *I like to imagine that Sweet Pea is a huge nerd. Originally, when i was planning this, I thought that this chapter would debut in April, before GOT, but May still works. However, as the season is going now, maybe SP should feel good that he'll never have to watch the burning trashcan that D&D have made it...
> 
> *Betty has her nickname! If you wanna play along to guess her name, you can! I think there's six connections between Betty's name to Arianrhod that SP took to get there. So, you can ask through the reviews, you can PM me, you can go to my tumblr (youngbloodlex22) and PM me there or ask a question, as many as you like, but I'll only answer in yes or nos. I'd be interested to see if any of you can figure it out ;) Figuring out what the name means is only a very small part of it! There's a reason he picked it!
> 
> *Finally, I have already written two chapters, nearly three a head. If I get a ton of reviews, I may consider updating in two weeks! So, show me some love :)

**Author's Note:**

> So all! I've been sitting on this idea for a while now. To be honest, it's just my stupid shipper heart that chooses to love total rarepairs XD And I mean, Sweet Pea is great! But, I really fell for the idea after Sweet Pea looked interested during Betty's dance. If you get the chance, go check out @forasecondtherewedwon work; she was the one that really got me obsessed with this couple and I pretty much feel like she is sailing the ship of SS SweetBetts all by herself!
> 
> This is a zombie!AU, and I'm going by the rules of The Walking Dead, and tbh, I actually consider it to be in this universe. I don't think we'll ever actually run into anyone from TWD from this, but I just thought I'd throw that out. Funny enough, I had started a 100 zombie!AU that I also considered to be in that universe (and eventually will get around to posting) so I guess they also are here. I have considered that down the line a character or two might pop up, but it would be very non-obvious. It wouldn't be like Sweet Pea running into Bellamy, not in this story at least (but, who knows, later I might be down for doing crossover sequels/one-shots!)
> 
> The original title for this story was going to be '(in your head, in your head) they are fighting' from the song 'Zombie', but I wasn't quite happy with that. Then, pop, a better title came along, and here we are! Each title of the piece will be a theoretical song from Sweet Pea's playlist. I don't have each title cemented in yet, so if you have a good song for the apocalypse, lemme know! Technically, in TWD, they've never heard of zombies (the myth just doesn't exist) so this song can't really exist either, but I love it so much (and the new Bad Wolves cover is so great) so I made it the preface track :)
> 
> If you want to see the cover I made for this way bigger, and also see an aesthetics board I did for this story, go to my tumblr- youngbloodlex22! I'll be posting art/news and stuff regarding this, and my other stories, there! I hope you all enjoy!


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